Tom Morello Says Post Malone and Late Chris Cornell Shared Similar Writing Styles: 'Hit, Hooky, Beautiful, Terrifying'

Post Malone and Tom Morello are cooking something up — and the multi-hyphenate has a lot in common with one of rock's most iconic frontmen, according to the Rage Against the Machine guitarist.

In a recent appearance on The Eddie Trunk Podcast, Morello revealed that Post Malone and his late Audioslave bandmate Chris Cornell have a similar songwriting process. "When we would write songs with Chris, we sort of threw music at him — whether it was a simple chord progression like 'I Am the Highway' or a more complicated heavy riff — and he would just come up instantaneously with a bunch of great melodies. We'd put those down, and then he would write words to whatever," Morello recalled.

"And that's exactly how Post Malone does it. Excellent melody — hit, hooky, beautiful, terrifying melody one after another. And that's one thing they have in common."

The singer, who released his debut country album F-1 Trillion in August, and the acclaimed guitarist collaborated in an hours-long studio session "over five or six years ago" and recorded a song. But according to Morello, "I can't get him to finish it... He's a busy dude and he's busy on some stadium tour right now, but we have a really great song together."

"We wrote a song together that, to my ears, sounds like what 'Beat It' was to Michael Jackson. It is a banger. It is an absolutely awesome rock song," he said of his unreleased Post Malone track.

While the Malone collab might take some time to see the light of day, Morello opened up about being one of the most prolific guitarists of a generation.

"I would defy you to find someone who's not a session musician for the last 50 years who has played with a more diverse body of artists than myself," Morello said, rattling off his collaborations with Paul McCartney, the Wu-Tang Clan, Kris Kristofferson and Metallica.

He also said Rage Against the Machine's sparse discography pushed him to collaborate to satisfy the desire to play. "Rage was making records like one every four years and like, I'm really prolific," he said. "I love to play. If there's a studio door, I'll walk through it. I started collaborating and learning so much from a real diversity of artists that I just kept going."