You may not know what a Bologna Colorado is, but you’ll want to after you experience one of their live shows.
The four-piece from Halifax is committed to bursting your eardrums with screeching guitar riffs, pounding drums and impassioned, raw vocals. All of this kinetic energy has been harnessed in the band’s latest single, “GET TO THE POINT!!!”, which dropped on April 26.
And in the most punk way imaginable, the band says the song, despite its name, is about absolutely nothing other than the music itself.
“It’s just kind of a loud scream song,” says bassist Adam Otmar. “There’s not much to it.”
At just over three minutes long, “GET TO THE POINT!!!” does exactly what the title says: it forgoes conventional storytelling to simply rock out as hard as possible. It’s a song to be felt in a room packed with fans, or a cathartic listen after a hard day at work. In some ways, it feels like it’s harkening back to the roots of punk in the 1970s in both style and intention.
That’s not to say Bologna Colorado refuses meaning altogether—it’s the opposite. Despite what their nonsense name referencing a bologna-covered corn dog may suggest, their first two albums, 2023’s Entertainment Section and 2024’s No Refund, reach the same loudness of the newest single with plenty of meaning behind the song’s creation.
“There’s songs that have a lot of meaning that we take very seriously,” says frontman Cole Chalifoux.
Meaning in music
For Chalifoux in particular, he’s written plenty of music with intentionality and meaning. He released his first solo album under the name George Mooring last year, a short but sweet listen filled with emotion and humour, tracked over acoustic guitars. The writing for Bologna Colorado is somewhat similar: it can be humorous, quirky and a touch emotional when the moment calls.
Their song “Ever Loving Feeling” from No Refund exemplifies this through lyrics about the contrast between one’s self-doubt and the subtle love felt for the world. It’s more of a typical rock song, but it shows that Bologna Colorado is multi-faceted: they can do much more than blow up the room with sound. “In My Life” contains some of the band’s best-written lyrics and an emotionally-provocative piano intro: a rock song pumped full of melancholy.
It’s not strange these days for a punk band to write about their feelings—it’s currently the norm, with popular acts like Jeff Rosenstock and PUP penning full albums about their emotional states. It’s rarer to find a band that so willingly shifts from that 1970s-esque punk apathy to the more modern conventional songwriting. It may seem confusing on the surface, but all of these songs convey a purpose beyond their intended meaning. “GET TO THE POINT!!!” is brilliant in that it doesn’t need to be about anything specific and yet can still get the listener fired up on the music alone.
There are plenty of garage rockers in Halifax that can play for a room full of people, but it’s much more difficult to find a band that amps up the crowd, and brings them down, as well as Bologna Colorado.
Their sound is unforgivingly loud, proud, and beautiful, and they are one band in the local rock scene you do not want to miss out on.
Their new single, “GET TO THE POINT!!!”, is on streaming services now. They will also be on tour throughout the spring with a full list of dates available on their website. Particularly, they play at the Seahorse Tavern on June 7.
This article appears in Apr 1-30, 2025.