Maren Morris talks big year: 'I think that people were just dying to hear a female voice'

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Maren Morris reacts to ACM Female Vocalist of the Year win

Fox411 Country: Country music star Maren Morris reacts to winning the Academy of Country Music's Female Vocalist of the Year

LAS VEGAS – One of country music’s biggest new stars Maren Morris goes into this year’s ACM Awards with a win, as it was previously announced she received the New Female Artist of the Year honor. Fox News spoke with her ahead of the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas.

Fox News: What has your success this year shown you?
Maren Morris: I think things were getting a little homogenized, with just, it was a lot of guys and there weren't as many girls… I think that people were just dying to hear a female voice, like, intercut with all these guy songs and… more just diversity anyway…. I just feel like my timing was sort of at the time where everyone was having that conversation about like where are the women? And I feel like there's been a huge impact of women. There's Kelsea Ballerini, myself… Lauren Alaina, Raelynn, and there's been this influx of really amazing artists who happen to be women. I think I'm not really attached to the females in country conversation as much anymore but I think, you know, we're here to stay, and we've always been here, and we've always been good.

Fox News: Helpful to go in already knowing you’ve won?
Morris: Yeah, it definitely is an ice breaker going into the awards already having one, and it was just so crazy when I heard I did win because I was in London at the time, and we were doing a festival out there, and my manager was like “You just won an ACM.” And I was like “How?” It’s so early! But it was so cool, and then I was so proud of my friends Brothers Osborne and Jon Pardi for winning their first ACMs too. So I feel like we're all going to walk with our heads a little higher into the awards show.

Fox News: And you have a collaboration at the ACMs as well (with Thomas Rhett). What do you feel it’s doing for the genre?
Morris: …Performing with Thomas Rhett our song “Craving You,” I’m so excited for the fans to see it, and sort of see our worlds come together because I feel like he's sort of a genre pusher and boundary pusher, and I feel the same way about my music… It just seemed natural for us to do a song together at some point, and so I'm excited to debut it at the ACMs.

Fox News: Touring wise, what you learned from this headlining tour?
Morris: I learned what my fans really looked like for the first time. I had never seen all of them in one space. I've always been opening up on different tours, so this was my own show, own production, and it was so cool to see everyone's faces and have that really intimate club moment where you can see them singing back to you and see each and every one of them…