Vice President Kamala Harris is known for being a hip-hop, soul, and jazz fan, but now we know she has dabbled in punk rock on at least one occasion. In a recent interview with EFE, Harris’ younger cousin Sharada Balachandran Orihuela recalled the two of them attending a Bad Religion show in the early 2000s.
Orihuela’s father, Gopalan Balachandran, is Harris’ uncle on her mother’s side, meaning they share the same Indian grandparents. While growing up between Mexico and India, Orihuela became a big fan of Bad Religion but never went to one of their concerts.
This all changed when Orihuela moved to Oakland, California in 2001 to attend college. Orihuela went to live with her aunt (and Harris’ mother) Shyamala, allowing her to bond with her older cousin.
At the time, Harris was an assistant district attorney in San Francisco, but the future Democratic presidential nominee still put forth the effort to make Orihuela feel at home. “She was like a big sister to me,” Orihuela told EFE.
Orihuela’s first punk rock concert, a Bad Religion show in San Francisco, was among their shared activities. “I went to high school in India, and there weren’t many punk-rock concerts there,” she said. “I listened to their music on my Walkman, and when I moved to the United States, I thought that now I could go to all those concerts.”
Harris’ presidential campaign has received varying degrees of co-signs from artists ranging from Charli XCX and P!NK to Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion to Bon Iver and Jason Isbell. Yo La Tengo have also auctioned off their availability for private concerts benefiting the Harris-Walz ticket.
Meanwhile, Bad Religion had been slated to head out on a North American tour this fall, but recently canceled due to “an unforeseen family circumstance.”