Brett Young’s debut single, “Sleep Without You,” climbed to the top of the Mediabase chart to close out 2016, but before he reached the milestone accomplishment, the California native got some valuable schooling as part of Brad Paisley’s Country Nation College Tour in the fall. As Brett joins Luke Bryan’s Kill the Lights Tour tonight (Feb. 23) for eight dates, and gears up to join Lady Antebellum’s You Look Good World Tour in May, the smooth crooner is taking the valuable lessons he learned from Brad “down the road.”

“I think aside from Brad being an incredible singer, performer, songwriter, I think the thing that I really learned from his tour and that I’m going to take away is the way that I was treated—and my whole team was treated—from his tour manager all the way down the line to the guys that were helping with sound every night,” says Brett to Nash Country Daily. “Everybody was so helpful. At that stage, it would be really easy to just be on the bus, not be involved, and let your opener go play his songs. From the very bottom up, everybody was giving Brad a good reputation every single night. I sat down with my team and my band right after that and I said, ‘Guys, look at this. The way that they do this, it’s incredible and we need to make sure that we’re doing this every night. Everybody that has an experience with us is having a positive experience.’ I think it was important for me to learn that early from him, because I’m going to take it with me down the road.”

Brett will take all of those Brad-instructed lessons with him in 2017 as he joins various tours with Luke Bryan, Justin Moore and Lee Brice and Lady Antebellum.

Below, check out Brad’s second single, “In Case You Didn’t Know,” which is currently No. 29 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qaHdHpSjX8