Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and bassist Jeff Ament recently sat down with Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff for an interview on their SiriusXM Pearl Jam Radio channel. During their discussion, Vedder revealed to Emhoff his biggest fears about a 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, describing a recent rally Trump held in California’s Coachella Valley that reportedly left many of his supporters stranded and unable to get back to their cars for hours.
Vedder compared the “chaoticness” of the event to Trump’s entire campaign and possible second term, implying that parallels could be drawn between the two. “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, echoing Vedder’s sentiment that 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. 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.”
At another point in the interview while discussing the huge support Harris has received from a slew of musicians and artists including R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, and Taylor Swift, Emhoff praised Pearl Jam for having always been involved in activism throughout their career.
“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 said. “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 [Georgia] and pick out some records was pretty, pretty damn cool, man.”
