“We hit it off, made a new friendship there, and we had a lot of fun,” the country singer tells PEOPLE

Drake Milligan has been itching to stretch his acting muscle since portraying the legendary Elvis Presley in the CMT series Sun Records. But never did he picture stretching that acting muscle alongside Cheer star Gabi Butler

“I had never met Gabi before,” says Milligan, 25, in a recent interview for PEOPLE. “We hit it off, made a new friendship there, and we had a lot of fun. Gabi is a natural. She seemed really comfortable in front of the camera and was just able to really show off all the little emotions. She looked great on camera too.”

The two also came out of it with a music video for Milligan’s new song “What I Couldn’t Forget.”

“One of my favorite parts about this video is I got to have all my friends in there,” explains Milligan of the music video shot over two days in Nashville and now premiering exclusively on PEOPLE.  “Besides Gabi being there, one of my friends from Texas came in with me and he was all over the videos. And everybody in my crew, people that work with my team, my social media team, my tour manager, all my band and his friends I have around Nashville came in and we used them as the extras in the video.”

The song is off Milligan’s new EP Jukebox Songs, out Friday.

Drake Milligan has been itching to stretch his acting muscle since portraying the legendary Elvis Presley in the CMT series Sun Records. But never did he picture stretching that acting muscle alongside Cheer star Gabi Butler.

“I had never met Gabi before,” says Milligan, 25, in a recent interview for PEOPLE. “We hit it off, made a new friendship there, and we had a lot of fun. Gabi is a natural. She seemed really comfortable in front of the camera and was just able to really show off all the little emotions. She looked great on camera too.”

The two also came out of it with a music video for Milligan’s new song “What I Couldn’t Forget.”

“One of my favorite parts about this video is I got to have all my friends in there,” explains Milligan of the music video shot over two days in Nashville and now premiering exclusively on PEOPLE.  “Besides Gabi being there, one of my friends from Texas came in with me and he was all over the videos. And everybody in my crew, people that work with my team, my social media team, my tour manager, all my band and his friends I have around Nashville came in and we used them as the extras in the video.”

It’s a camaraderie that certainly got stronger last April, when Milligan and his bandmates were involved in a bus crash while traveling between Fort Worth and Georgetown, Texas, when a tire flew into the van in which he and his bandmates were traveling in, causing their vehicle to collide into the concrete median.

“Most of us were asleep when it happened,” reflects Milligan, who received 11 staples in his head after being hit with what he thinks was the microwave. “It was pretty terrifying. My first reaction was to make sure everybody was OK. Once I realized that I was not hurt too bad, I wanted to make sure everybody was OK. And luckily everybody was for the most part.”

But the accomplished singer/songwriter still finds himself thinking about it.

“After that, you never want to take any shows for granted, because that could end up being your last show,” says Milligan, who was recently mentioned as “one of the most successful acts in America’s Got Talent  history” by judge Howie Mandel. “Sleeping on the van isn’t exactly easy for me anymore. If I do fall asleep and we hit a bump or something, I’m waking up. But I think the more you do it, the better it will get again. The biggest thing is when we learned is that you can’t be too careful.”

And while Milligan says his current relationship status is single at the moment, he says that writing love songs often has him thinking back to his past.

“You try to think on past relationships or maybe the kind of relationship you want to be in when you’re writing this stuff,” says Milligan. “The heartbreak stuff is pretty easy too.”