On the eve of his country album ‘F-1 Trillion,’ Morgan Wallen, Keith Urban and more talk about working with Post Malone.
Post Malone performs onstage at Spotify House during CMA Fest 2024 – Day 1 at Ole Red on June 06, 2024 in Nashville, Tenn. Brett Carlsen/Getty Images for Spotify
As Post Malone prepares to release his country album F-1 Trillion on Friday, country artists who have worked with him on the album and other projects are singing his praises.
“He’s the real deal,” says Keith Urban, who sang Elvis Presley’s 1959 hit “Baby, What You Want Me to Do” with Post Malone on a 2019 NBC special in one of Post Malone’s first appearances with a country artist. It’s a sentiment shared by others who have worked with him.
The new Mercury/Republic set, produced by Charlie Handsome and Louis Bell, features duets with several country stars, including Dolly Parton, Tim McGraw, Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson, Chris Stapleton, Brad Paisley, Jelly Roll and Morgan Wallen, whose collaboration, “I Had Some Help,” topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and Country Airplay charts. Current single, “Pour Me a Drink,” featuring Blake Shelton, climbs to No. 14 with a bullet on Country Airplay for the chart dated Aug. 17, while the duet with Combs, “Guy For That,” is No. 36.
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HARDY, who duets with Malone on “Hide My Gun” and performed a Joe Diffie tribute with him and Wallen at last year’s CMA Awards, says the singer approached making a country album “the right way … He spent months and months of his time in Nashville and immersed himself into the songwriting world and put together a really great record that is amazing.””
“I just want to hang out, have a beer, listen to your ideas,” Post Malone told the New York Times, describing how he approaches collaborations. “I feel like there’s a lot of people set in their ways. I just want to make the song work in the best way for the song.”
The only drawback for some of his writing partners? His late night hours. In a December interview, Wallen confessed that Post Malone’s studio hours were hard for him. “[He] likes to write really, really late at night — and I can’t do that three nights in a row. I can do that one night,” he says with a laugh. “I can start about 5 p.m., but starting at 10 p.m. — that’s rough.”
For the last several months, Malone and his collaborators posted photos from writing sessions and snippets of new songs. The Dallas native has also done a series of country-only gigs, including at Stagecoach, a Bud Light-sponsored event in Nashville and, this past weekend, at San Francisco’s Outside Lands festival. On Wednesday (Aug. 14), he makes his Grand Ole Opry debut. A 21-date F-1 Trillion tour kicks off Sept. 8 in Salt Lake City.
At his Outside Lands set on Sunday (Aug. 11), Post Malone performed an endearing, if somewhat shambolic cover of Brooks & Dunn’s 1991 classic “Brand New Man,” where he forgot some of the words. Still, it met the approval of the original duo, who are avowed fans.
“We were going back and forth about it [Monday night],” says the duo’s Ronnie Dunn. “[Post Malone] goes, ‘I’m so sorry.’ I said, ‘You’ve killed it man.’ And he said, ‘I started reading some guy’s poster and got off on the track and eight Bud Lights didn’t help.’ He’s as cool as they come.”
Dunn notes what a number of country artists who have worked with Post Malone have observed: he’s a veritable country music jukebox. “You see him step out on stage — at The Bluebird Café and stuff — with his guitar and he sings every song verbatim. I’d have to have cue cards all over the floor, but he knows these country songs. He’s like a savant. He’s sincerely a country music fan.”
In addition to his Grand Ole Opry debut, Wednesday saw Post Malone receive four nominations for the People’s Choice Country Awards, including song of 2024 with “I Had Some Help.”
