Music News

Second Gentleman Dough Emhoff has established a reputation as a music nerd and, like his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, an inveterate crate digger. So it made perfect sense that as he’s been grinding it out on the road like a rock band touring in a panel van to support Harris’ presidential campaign, Emhoff took time out to chop it up with Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament to describe how he’s been connecting with voters at record shops around the country.

“I’m trying to highlight small business and talk about all the great things that Kamala Harris is gonna do for the country and merge it with my love of music,” Emhoff told the PJ singer and bassist during a visit to their SiriusXM Pearl Jam Radio channel. “And so it’s gotten me to local record stores across the country. I’ve gotten to, you know, meet you guys, but also [former R.E.M. singer] Michael Stipe kind of came out of semi-retirement, and Michael’s now done two events for us.”

The most recent event featuring Stipe took place at an Oct. 4 Get Out the Vote concert in Pittsburgh that also featured Jason Isbell. Emhoff said indie rock legend Stipe took him to one of his favorite hometown indie rock shops [Wuxtry Records] in Athens, GA, which, he noted, is still standing. “I kind of did a whole, you know, go through shelf by shelf with him. I got to visit a record store with [California] Governor Gavin Newsom, who also loves music. So he and I were with a local business owner going through the stacks, picking out some records,” Emhoff said.

And that’s not all. Emhoff also noted that he’s gotten to hang and talk music with Jon Bon Jovi, another Harris/Walz campaign supporter, as well as Isbell. Though Bruce Springsteen has also given his thumbs-up to Harris, Emhoff lamented that he has yet to meet the Boss in person, while noting that Taylor Swift has also, famously, endorsed his wife’s 11th hour White House bid.

“So the music industry has come out in a way that you guys have always done this. It’s what you did from day one, using your voice, not only to make this music we all love, but to talk about the truth and being engaged,” Emhoff told the PJ members, who have long worn their activism on their sleeves. “And so to see that coming back and get to talk to some of the people I’ve listened to my whole life, and then see how active they are. But to do that in a record store with Michael Stipe in Athens and pick out some records was pretty, pretty damn cool, man.”

Vedder said he got the chills hearing the R.E.M. origin story, then reciting the details of it as chapter-and-verse, down to the album that Stipe and guitarist Peter Buck bonded over: Patti Smith’s Horses. To rub it in a bit more, Emhoff added that Stipe also took him to a compound of buildings he owns in Athens, where he got a personal tour, which included pointing out the very spot where the singer wrote the lyrics to the band’s 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction.

Ament wondered what albums are still on Emhoff’s need-to-get list, which inspired the Second Gent to reel off a list of some more of his favorite bands, including the Pixies, Nirvana and, of course, PJ, as well as Radiohead and The Stone Roses’ legendary self-titled 1989 debut LP.

It also stood to reason that politically plugged-in Vedder would tell Emhoff what his biggest fears are about a potential second Donald Trump administration. “People’s safety is the most important thing. So you know, when I read about this event that happened, perhaps over the weekend. A large group gathered for Trump in the thousands, and there were 20 buses that brought them in. Intense heat in the Desert Valley there, gets up to 102 during the day,” Vedder said of a recent Trump rally in California’s Coachella Valley that reportedly left hundreds of followers stranded in desert heat with no way to get back to their cars.

Vedder said that chaotic scene of unpreparedness felt like a parallel to the whole vibe of the third White House campaign by the twice impeached former President. “Not to mention the confusion, again, chaos and some of the quotes are, are chilling. But I have to say, it seems analogous to the election,” Vedder said. “Unlike any other candidate in the history of our country, [Trump’s] got more at stake on a personal level, his personal freedoms, his future, all riding on this vote. And he’s, I think he needs people. And I think he uses people. And I think this Coachella’s situation is very analogous to what would happen if and when he would potentially win. He gets what he wants, uses the people as padding, and then they’re left in utter chaos to fend for themselves. That’s what we worry about.”

Emhoff replied by echoing one of Harris’ frequent refrains, that she believes convicted felon Trump is “only in it for [himself and] doesn’t care about others. And we already saw that the first time that he was president, and he was like that then. And he is worse now. You know, he’s a degraded version of what he was, and he was a pretty horrible President that time around,” Emhoff said. “And he has just gotten worse. He’ll be surrounded by people who are like him, incompetent, who don’t really care about us extremists. And that’s what’s at stake right now.”

Elsewhere, Emhoff talked about being blown away by the sense of family and community backstage at a recent PJ show he attended in Philadelphia. The full interview is in available now on SiriusXM’s Pearl Jam Radio (ch. 22) and on the SiriusXM app, with re-broadcasts scheduled to air during the rest of the week.

Check out highlights from their chat below.