Tom Morello Thinks Collab with Post Malone Could Be Next ‘Beat It’
Tom Morello once worked with rapper Post Malone on a track that has yet to see the light of day. However, the Rage Against The Machine guitarist thinks very highly of the collaboration.
In an appearance on The Allison Hagendorf Show (h/t Guitar World), Morello said he and Malone “worked out a pretty sick jam.” Unfortunately, the track remains unfinished, and their initial meetup in a recording studio was about four years ago.
How sick is this song? Morello noted, “To me, [it] felt like it could be, for him, like his ‘Beat It,’ y’know, with Michael Jackson, a big pop star, paired with Eddie Van Halen and made something that no one had expected.”
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EVH famously provided the blistering guitar solo from “Beat It,” which is featured on the landmark Michael Jackson album Thriller. (Fun fact: Van Halen wasn’t Jackson’s first choice for the “Beat It” solo. The King of Pop initially reached out to Pete Townshend. The Who guitarist told Rolling Stone shortly after Van Halen died in October 2020, “I said I couldn’t do it but recommended Eddie who called and we chatted. He was utterly charming, happy about the connection, but told me how much he was enjoying playing keyboards.”)
Anyway, how come the song hasn’t been completed yet? Morello chalks it up to the fact that the rapper is “trippy.” He said, “First of all, he’s just a lovely, lovely person … You know how some people have guitar techs, or drum techs, he had a Coors Light tech! [Laughs] There was a guy whose sole job apparently was just make sure there is a stack of cold Coors Light… It took about four hours of sitting around with Coors Light before we did any recording.”
Morello hasn’t given up on Malone yet, though, saying, “I see him from time to time and I’m like, ‘You’re still dropping the ball on that one.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, man, I’m gonna do that.’ I’m like, ‘Okay.’ [Laughs]. It’s sick!”