“I’ve Listened To Some Awful Music” – Post Malone’s Dad Always Encouraged His Dreams… Even When The Music Was Really Bad

Capital Pictures/Alamy Live News/Jeremy G Barker Podcast

It’s easy to see how Post Malone became such a kind, respectful person when you listen to his dad talk.

Rich Post is the father of Austin Post, who most of us know by his stage name Post Malone, and he sat down on the Jeremy G Barker Podcast this week, where he talked about raising Austin, as well as is brother Mitchell, and how he instilled certain values in them that has clearly lasted well into adulthood.

Rich is incredibly well-spoken and seems as kind and down-to-earth as Post, and it’s really interesting to hear him talk about his son’s life and career from his perspective, seeing as he’s been there since the beginning and made him the man he is today (Rich also talked about his ex-wife, Post’s biological mom, who was very much in the picture contrary to some news reports).

In addition to all of the great parenting advice, the funniest part of the episode had to be when Rich talked about how he listened to “some awful music” in their house when Post was still experimenting as a young artist, long before Post was scoring hits like “Sunflower,” “rockstar,” “Circles” and many others, but hey, everyone has to start somewhere…

“Listen, I’ve listened to some awful music… but it was his passion. You just had to make sure you weren’t the reason he couldn’t pursue it.”

I can imagine Rich was only praying Post would make it one day, and like any parent, I’m sure he was a little bit skeptical, in a healthy way, about his son’s chances… I don’t think he could’ve imagined just how massive Post would become, especially because they came from very humble beginnings and lived normal lives.

Of course, Post first shot to stardom with his breakthrough single “White Iverson,” which gained traction naturally after he uploaded it to SoundCloud in 2015. It quickly gained millions of plays, leading to Post signing a record deal with Republic Records.

The rest, as they say, is history, and now Posty is a country star too, following the success of his 2024 debut country album, F-1 Trillion, and Rich says he just tried to cultivate his son’s passion for music from a young age. He also reminded him many times how much effort went into his fans showing up for him, and he should always respect that by showing up on time for his concerts and appreciating what all that took:

“When the kid has the passion, even if I don’t understand it, or you as a parent don’t understand it, if they’re passion about it and they’re pursuing it, it doesn’t mean you’ve given up any right to explain to them what they might do that’s better.

And I’m not talking about the artistry or anything, but one of the things I always said to Austin, if you have a concert, don’t be late. They don’t work for you, you work for them. They’ve paid money to see you, or they’ve done something, taking time out of their day to see him, don’t be late.

That’s one of the things Austin’s learned. And it’s not necessarily all Austin. When he got involved in it, him and the people around him were young… he was 19.”

Rich also spoke about the fact that he played that “awful” music for all of his co-workers when he worked for the Dallas Cowboys, and no one ever told them if they didn’t like it, because they respected him so much and they knew how much he believed in his son:

“The other thing that’s interesting about kids and their pursuits is that talking to other people, people need to feel you. They need to believe in you. And Austin was fortunate that he was a good kid and people believed in him.

He wasn’t arrogant… I’ve listened to people talk in the past, not so much now, about industry plant and all that, I never owned a music company. If all of the rumors about where I came from were true, it would probably be different, right? I’ve heard that I was a record company executive, I owned this professional sports team, I bought 50,000 copies of ‘White Iverson’ just to make it go viral, and none of it’s true.

All I did was be supportive. You should go back and talk to all the people that I worked with that I made listen to his music that might’ve wanted to tell me exactly how they felt about some of it and never did out of respect for my position or our relationship. But I always believed in him.”

He’s clearly incredibly proud of both of his sons, and did a fantastic job raising them… the fact that Post has such a sterling reputation in Hollywood and with regular, every day fans a like says everything you need to know about the kind of person he is, and the type of family he comes from.

It’s really a great conversation, and you’ll quickly understand how Post got to where he is, and how he became the kind of person he is, when you listen to even five minutes of his dad talking.

Check it out… and thanks for tolerating all those years of below average music, Rich, and never discouraging Post from continuing on and going after his dreams. The world is much better for it now in so many was: