Country newcomers Maddie & Tae are ready to spread their wings and fly with Friday’s (Aug. 28) release of their debut album, Start Here.

The duo of Maddie Marlow and Taylor Dye grabbed attention with their No. 1 hit, “Girl in a Country Song,” but they had some serious discussions together about what their first album should sound like.

“Finding out who you are as a person takes some time,” Marlow admitted in an interview with CMT Hot 20 Countdown. “But also at the end of the day, we want our songs to be positive. Whether it’s a harder subject or a fun song, we want it to be positive and uplifting, and that’s something that we’ve always instilled with our writers and production.”

Some of those lessons have been learned by life on the road while performing concerts and visiting radio stations.

“I think, with us, we have grown up the most in the most uncomfortable times in our career when we’re travelling for two months straight and not sleeping and all those kinds of thing,” Marlow said. “We’re homesick. Those are the times when we really learned about who we are and what we want to say.”

Start Here was produced by Dann Huff, whose resume includes hits for Keith Urban, Faith Hill and many others.

“We definitely pushed each other because Dan leans more toward rock and slammin’ country,” Dye said. “We are, like, country -- country everything traditional with fiddle and steel. So it was a challenge for both of us to pull that out of each other. He definitely pulled out some rock in us and we pulled out some country in him. So it was a great balance.”

Maddie & Tae look forward to getting their fans’ reaction to the album. Don’t be surprised if you find them in the music department of local stores while they’re traveling.

“Oh, we are definitely going to go to the store and buy a bunch of physical copies,” Marlow said. “We want to look at the comments and see what our fans are gravitating toward and what song is their favorite. Because we have our favorites! It’ll be interesting. … We are going to have a little competition to see whose favorite is the more favorite.”

For more on Maddie & Tae’s new album, tune in to the new episode of CMT Hot 20 Countdown airing Saturday and Sunday (Aug. 29-30) at 9 a.m. ET/PT.