Jason Aldean's "fun," fast ride to music stardom

(CBS News) Jason Aldean is having quite a ride. The country music star had the top-selling country album of 2011 with "My Kinda Party." His nationwide tour is sold out and he's picked up six nominations for Sunday's Academy of Country Music Awards.

The star has come a long way from Macon, Ga., and he said he knows he's come a really long way in recent years.

"(This has) been way more than I could ever hope for, but it's been fun," he said on "CBS This Morning.

He now has an entourage and even a bodyguard, but he said he tells them he's "basically paying them to hang out with (him), keep (him) company more than anything else."

Aldean said he went into country music when his childhood dreams of playing baseball weren't working out.

"As a little kid I wanted to be baseball player," Aldean said. "I grew up playing baseball and I had a chance to go to college and kind of pursue baseball a little further. And the thought of going to school for four more years just was not very appealing to me at the time, so I decided to kind of throw everything I had into music at that point and went out and started playing some clubs and things like that, and kind of went the music path and here we are."

When asked about country stars' being so nice and normal all the time, Aldean said it's often due to years of struggling for success.

"Most of us really kind of came up in the business struggling to get to where we are, you know. It's like any business like this," he said. "It's not easy, and I think for most of us, just kind of remembering, you know, those times of struggling and getting here. You know, once you finally get an opportunity, I guess, to do this, you don't want to take it for granted and do things like start treating people bad. ... You're not going to be around for very long if you start doing things like that.

For Aldean's full interview on "CBS This Morning," including his work with artists outside the country music fold, watch the video in the player above.