Post Malone has a thing for ’90s grunge/rock covers. He famously did an entire livestream set of Nirvana covers with Travis Barker on the drums in the first months of the pandemic, and at his 2021 New Year’s Eve show, he covered Alice In Chains’ classic “Rooster.” Now, for his latest, he tackled Pearl Jam’s 1994 single “Better Man” during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, with Pearl Jam producer Andrew Watt on the acoustic guitar.
Malone explained to Stern why “Better Man” holds such a special feeling for him, saying, “I remember my brother Jordan, he was a Marine and he was stationed in Hawaii and we went out to go see him. I was 12 or 13 maybe and he played this song. We were driving around, and this was on an island you could drive around in a of couple hours. And he played that, and I guess I’ve just been thinking about that a lot lately.”
“So when you hear ‘Better Man,’ you think about you brother, who is a Marine?” Stern asks, to which Malone admitted, “Every moment and it makes me f*cking cry… he’s just a beautiful man and he introduced me to Pearl Jam in a big f*cking way.”
Watt begins playing the chords and Malone embarks on a slightly off-key cover of the tune. You could tell he was trying to match Eddie Vedder’s signature staccato and while he’s nowhere close to as good as the Pearl Jam vocalist in that regard, the emotions behind Posty’s choice of songs was felt throughout.
Watch Malone cover Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” above.
