Winning any ACM Award can be incredibly validating. It means the music you're making means something to the genre. And for Midland, winning new vocal duo or group this year, it means even more.

The trio came backstage during the ACM Awards on Sunday night (April 15) to talk about loving the love and ignoring the hate.

“We’ve been running a million miles an hour for the last four years. It's surreal and hard to process where we started and where we’ve come to," said the band's Mark Wystrach.

As for questions about the new group's authenticity from some news outlets, Wystrach boldly defended their country roots and made some disparaging remarks about anyone who would think otherwise.

"That’s just some fool trying to get click bait because, you know, he’s got pay rent at his mom’s house," he said. "You can’t walk onstage and do what we do if you haven’t paid your debts and spent the time working on your craft. And the authenticity? I don’t know what that means. I grew up on a cattle ranch," he said, as the group agreed that what matters isn't where you're from or what your day job used to be. It's playing music from the heart as they've done on their debut album On the Rocks.

When the band first got together, Wystrach said, they thought they were just going to be a honky-tonk bar band forever. "Because that's where we started. But the acceptance and success of "Drinkin' Problem" at radio has surprised a lot of people, and we're just happy to be along for this ride," he said. "We try to take it one day at a time and be here in the moment."

An all-new CMT Hot 20 Countdown, airing Saturday and Sunday (April 21-22) at 9 a.m. ET, will have more on all the action from the ACMs in Las Vegas.