At this point, Post Malone's hard-rock bona fides are beyond dispute. In addition to his badass quarantine Nirvana tribute set, the Twelve Carat Toothache hit-maker counts Pantera's "Walk" as a go-to karaoke song (he rocks a Dimebag tattoo, after all), has covered Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" live and done multiple collaborations with Ozzy Osbourne. He even enlisted Gatecreeper and Turnstile to play the 2021 edition of his annual Posty Fest.
Now, you can add a raw, gritty take on Pearl Jam's "Better Man" to Post's rock resume. The pop star delivered the cover during a recent appearance on the Howard Stern Show, backed by producer Andrew Watt on acoustic guitar. Watch above.
The performance, it turns out, was a nod to Malone's younger maternal half-brother, Jordan Lake. "I remember my brother Jordan, he was a Marine, and he was stationed in Hawaii. And we went to go see him. I was 12, 13, maybe. And he played this song, and we were driving around," Malone explained of the grunge classic. "This was on an island you could drive around in a couple of hours. And he played it, and I guess I've just been thinking about that a lot lately."
Asked by Stern if the song reminds him of his brother, Post responded: "Every moment. And it makes me fuckin' cry. He is just a beautiful man. And he introduced me to Pearl Jam in a big fuckin' way."
