By her own admission, 2018 has been "a really, really crazy year" for Ashley McBryde: Her major-label debut album, Girl Going Nowhere, earned fan and critical acclaim (including, recently, a Grammys nomination). She can count Eric Church, Garth Brooks and George Strait among her fans. And she can now say she's played two of her "bucket list" venues: the Grand Ole Opry and Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater.

McBryde's 2019 is looking to be quite the year as well. She's been invited to open for Strait at a few concerts, and will accompany Little Big Town on their Canadian tour early in the year.

"That's already an insane year shaping up," McBryde reflects to The Boot -- and when she went to dinner with her booking agent in mid-December, he told her to get ready, because "as crazy as this year was, 2019's going to be even crazier."

In the midst of that craziness, McBryde and her band will be back in the studio, too. Jay Joyce, who produced Girl Going Nowhere, is on board for McBryde's sophomore record.

"[Your sophomore album] is where you kind of go in and prove that the first record wasn't a fluke," she reflects. And after recording her first album in just two overnight sessions, McBryde says she's excited to get a bit more time "to do things and mess with things and rearrange things, do something weird for a day if we get stuck in a rut."

McBryde will spend most of January off the road, writing for that new album. She admits that writing while on tour has proven "impossible."

"Maybe after a couple of years of having it under your belt, it's easy to write on the road, but for us, it's impossible," she says. "Everything you're doing is [based around your tour schedule] ... Your brain and your heart never -- as much as you want to write, they never get in the same room at the same time, or you do write a song, and it's complete crap."

Fans can visit AshleyMcBryde.com to keep up with McBryde's 2019 plans.

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