Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on Why He Endorses Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
Since Kamala Harris stepped up as the candidate to face off with Donald Trump in November, she’s sparked a wildly energetic response from the music world. Megan Thee Stallion, Quavo, and Olivia Rodrigo have all performed at Harris rallies or offered their support, and they are far from alone. Rolling Stone spoke with several artists about why they’re supporting Harris’ candidacy, and why the stakes this November couldn’t be higher.
Bon Iver songwriter Justin Vernon has long sported his political affiliations on his sleeve. In past presidential election cycles, he’s played at rallies for Bernie Sanders and donated to Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s campaigns. But Vernon found himself in a very different situation when he was invited to play at a Harris event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in August — which turned out to be a pivotal moment for her campaign.
My high school friend, Sarah Godlewski, is the secretary of state in Wisconsin. They said, “You want to play at the rally?” I said, “Absolutely.” We hadn’t played in a while, and I haven’t been in public in a while, but I didn’t bat an eye at doing that, because it felt important.
A couple of weeks prior, I had been kicking around this song, “Rally ’Round the Flag” [a.k.a. the anti-slavery, pro-Union Civil War song “Battle Cry of Freedom”]. I heard it on a Ry Cooder album. I’ve been on a Ken Burns kick lately, and feeling a bit patriotic. That can be a scary word for people who want progressive change, but that song just really hit me. It’s got that sentimental “I love the Union forever” thing. I just started playing it and learning how Ry played it, and I never do that. Then it was, “Well, I know what we’re going to play when we go up there.”
After I got the call about the rally, they announced Tim Walz [as Harris’ running mate]. It was all making sense. I love a football coach who also started the gay-straight alliance in his high school. Those are the kind of people I grew up admiring and trying to emulate. When I go hunting with my dad and we go to the bar on Friday night of opening weekend, we run into guys like Tim. It was so incredible to have Walz announced, and then, the next day, have the center of the whole earth be right in my hometown of Eau Claire. There were 12,000 people there. That’s when the momentum shifted, in that 24-hour period, and just to be at that centrifugal place was quite stirring.
We hadn’t played a note of music together in a year. It’s hard to play outside. It was really hot. And then you’re playing these Bon Iver songs that aren’t exactly “kick your feet up, dance and get excited!” But when we played “Rally ’Round the Flag,” it felt like we’d settled in, and that was the purpose of the day — to get that music out in the air for those people at that moment.
I did a rally for Bernie Sanders [in 2016]. He’s my guy, always and forever. But this was a really different experience. There was more electricity in the air. There was more unification, more togetherness, and a vaster swath of types of people there in terms of race, age, and gender. There wasn’t anyone who stayed home. The older Democrats in my area are old-timers in overalls who’ve been farming their whole lives. They don’t know who Bon Iver is and don’t care. All my friends in the trans community in Eau Claire were there too. To have that unified feeling amongst that huge swath of everybody from Eau Claire — I don’t honestly know if I’ve felt that since, maybe, ever.
After the rally, the Harris and Walz staffers were saying, “You’re going in the motorcade afterwards.” I was like, “I am?” I brought them downtown to my buddy’s store, the Local Store at Volume One. They sell my friend’s local honey. I showed them around the store and told them what to get. They got some cheese curds. And we just shot the breeze. They got to meet some of the local kids. Kamala was asking my friend’s son about how things were at school, how kids treated the other kids, was everybody being good to each other. I’ve been around some politics and stuff, but I was not expecting to feel emotional. I felt, “Wow, I could really get behind this woman to protect and serve our country.” She really, really made a big impression. I gave her a record by my bandmate, S. Carey. We’ll see if she checks it out.
The justice system, as broken and busted as it seems, is our justice system. With her perspective and her record of being tough, especially with the corporate stuff and her record in law enforcement, I like that. As progressives, we want to see perfection, and we want to see everything we think America and the world deserves now; philosophically, we can imagine how it should be. There’s a sense with Kamala that she can change reality, that she can bring progress in the system in the real world. I have high hopes for what she can bring to justice and to this country right now, especially with corporate greed. Trump is shitting his pants, and he should be.
I’m feeling like a lot of people are. When Biden dropped out, it was feeling very scary. Then there was relief. And then the momentum of that relief has turned into actual excitement and a feeling we haven’t had for a long time in this country. I told Vice President Harris and Coach Walz and their staff, “We will be anywhere.” We might bring a little bit better sound system and a little rehearsal, but anything they need, we’ll be there in a heartbeat.
