At 53 years old, Vince Neil is doing things he never thought he would do -- and he's impacting country music as we know it. Neil and his band Motley Crue have a huge group of country stars behind them for the ‘Country Music Tribute to Motley Crue’ album. Because of his involvement in the album, he attended the CMT Awards.

“I never thought I’d be at a country anything, you know, so this is really really cool,” he tells CMT with a smile. “I’m excited meeting a bunch of people that I’ve never met before and everyone’s kind of embraced me and Motley Crue and it’s a lot of fun.”

Neil says he wasn't expecting to be asked to attend the CMT Awards. In fact, he says he was very surprised. "I was kind of shocked to be part of the show. But there's an album coming out July 19 that Big Machine is putting out -- it's called 'Nashville Outlaws: Tribute to Motley Crue,' and we have bands like Justin Moore did 'Home Sweet Home' and Florida Georgia Line did a song and LeAnn Rimes did 'Smokin in the Boys Room,' and it's really, it's a really cool album with each person's different take on the songs."

He may not listen to a whole lot of country, but he says that country music now is taking the place of rock 'n' roll. "There really is no like up-and-coming rock 'n roll ... Young country is really the new rock 'n' roll, and that's what's pretty exciting."

He's proving to be right now that he's singing with Moore for his version of 'Home Sweet Home.' The song is actually going to be Moore's next single -- combining rock 'n roll with country on radio.

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