Post Malone Talks ‘Austin,’ Parenthood and Memory Loss From Mushrooms

Too much, too often, is too bad. Just ask Post Malone, who reckons his mental acuity isn’t what it once was, thanks to overdoing it with hallucinogens.

The singer and rapper still digs mushroom, of the magical variety, but not with the same appetite as he once had.

“Yeah, I’ll take shrooms. I like shrooms,” he admits in a recent interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music. “Not as much as I used to. It really affected my short-term memory.”

For his sitdown with the New Zealand-born broadcaster, Malone reflects on an earlier “stint of habitual overuse, like daily” which may have contributed to the fog. “Now I take a little bar of (mushroom) chocolate with my buddies, a little square of chocolate and just laugh and laugh and laugh.”

Nothing is off-limits, as Malone reflects on youthful indiscretions, including bad experiences with pharmaceutical drugs. But never the hard stuff. “I shouldn’t have to really justify anything to anyone, but I appreciate the concerns that people (have about his health),” he adds, “but then the rumor starts that I’m doing hard drugs, which I’ve never done in my entire life.”

Malone also talks about his newfound priorities as a parent, and the early mornings that come with it. “The schedule just keeps getting fuller, and now that I’m a dad, the schedule only got more full,” says the singer and rapper, a known late-riser.

That schedule continues to gets “fuller and fuller” with the release of new music. That’s the case with Posty’s fifth and latest studio album Austin, which dropped last Friday, and will be supported with another major world tour. Austin is the followup to 2022’s Twelve Carat Toothache, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart, and became Malone’s fourth studio album to chart within the top five.

It opens at No. 2 on the ARIA Chart, published Aug. 4.

“I’m definitely more tired. I was always tired before (children), but now I’m more tired.”

Fatigue hasn’t stopped Posty from booking a second tour of Australia, set for November and produced by Live Nation. Those open-air dates are an encore run, and follow Malone’s six stadium concerts in January and February of this year with Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Watch the interview below.