(The Recording Academy asked some of this year's first-time GRAMMY nominees to collect their thoughts and share what it feels like to be nominated for a GRAMMY.)

I don't think it's any big secret that we are surprise nominees to the world at large, but it feels even crazier to be a surprise nominee to yourself. We were in Chicago when we found out. It was such a blurry morning because we had just played a show the night before and stayed up pretty late. I woke up in a hotel room at like 8:30 because my phone wouldn't stop ringing. I was actually upset because anyone that knows us wouldn't call before noon so I wound up throwing my phone across the room.

Eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore and I started reading all these texts that obviously blew my mind. It didn't feel real. It still doesn't. I was with my girlfriend, which was really special because I almost never get to see her due to how much time we spend on the road. This made it an extra special morning for me. It just felt like a scene from a movie. Maybe one day it will be.

The rest of the crew and band were in another room and we found each other pretty quickly but we couldn't really speak. There really wasn't much to do but smile and then get in the van and start heading to the next show as quickly as we could.

Since then it's been like you'd imagine it would be. All of our friends and family are super proud and of course our personal Facebook pages are now being regularly hounded with friend requests from all the kids that never talked to us in high school. But that's typical — it just helps add to the movielike feel. What we're stoked about the most is being able to share these nominations with everyone that actually believed in us these past eight years. A lot of people helped us in different capacities throughout this whole journey, so to have written and recorded an album that received two GRAMMY nominations, I can't think of a better way to prove to them they weren't wrong in taking a chance. It feels good to know that they feel good.

We have a motto: "My crew is dope." You see it all over our stuff as MCID. It basically just means we're a really tight family that extends beyond us three. It's not like our MCID's didn't feel like a part of something before, they definitely did, but now that there is the weight of two GRAMMY nominations in the camp, it's just really cool to see how good they feel about it.

Since Dec. 7 we haven't really had any time to let it fully sink in. We tour like crazy all year because that's what it takes and that's what we love. We just finally got off the road on Dec. 18 so now, even as I write these words, it's starting to kind of kick in. This is real. We wrote an album that got the nod. What a dream come true.

We are headed to the U.K. in January to play a bunch of shows there for the first time ever. I guess the main thing we're going to be focusing on while we are over there is what to wear on Feb. 15. Talk about anxiety, ha-ha. Usually when we watch the GRAMMYs we're in sweatpants and T-shirts with spaghetti stains on them. But this year our couch will have to find some other butts!

We're so honored and excited to be a part of this. None of what I just said could even come close to describing the feeling.

(Highly Suspect — comprising bassist Rich Meyer, drummer Ryan Meyer and guitarist Johnny Stevens — are nominated for Best Rock Album for their album, 2015's Mister Asylum. The album peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's Top Hard Rock Albums chart on the strength of the single "Lydia," which is up for Best Rock Song.)

Tune in to the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS.