Warner Music NashvilleCole Swindell may not have become the chart-topping country star he is today without his experience in the Sigma Chi fraternity at Georgia Southern University. Though he admits he did his fair share of partying with his frat brothers, Cole also picked up the people skills that have proven invaluable to his music career.

Cole tells ABC News Radio, “I think the thing is just networking and being in Nashville, that’s what it’s all about is getting your name out there and just [learning] how to treat people and how you’d want to be treated.”

Since a lot of the fraternity’s alumni still lived closed to campus, the guys in Sigma Chi were always held to pretty high standards.

“It’s helped me being an artist now, I’m held to a different standard,” Cole explains. “People watching everything I do, and it’s good to know that I was raised right and been around good people. It makes it easier to keep your head on straight.”

In spite of those life lessons he picked up in the frat, Cole still found plenty of inspiration for the party songs on his self-titled debut album.

“We did party and have fun,” Cole says, “but I wouldn’t have wrote songs like ‘Brought to You by Beer’ if I hadn’t went to Georgia Southern and lived like I did. It was such a blast.”

Look for Cole to perform on ABC’s Good Morning America Tuesday.

Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio

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