Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Peter Bolland

RIYL

The Coyote Problem, Wilco, Deuter

Influences

Neil Young, Tom Waits, Jim Croce, Son Volt, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne

Discography

Sponsored

“I’m like a less-pissed-off Steve Earle,” says homespun singer/songwriter Peter Bolland. “I write songs that have three, maybe four chords. I like lyrics that make sense the first time through but reveal more and more every time you go back. I avoid like the plague songs that preach or try to teach you something. Pedantry belongs on the pulpit, not in music. Instead of telling me how war is bad or cajoling me into universal brotherhood, sing me a story of a life cut short and let me find my way there myself.”

Bolland hadn’t even entered grade school yet when his Dutch parents relocated to the U.S. “I was born in New Jersey after my parents emigrated there from Holland. My oldest brother was born in Holland, and mom was pregnant with another brother on the boat.”

“In 1962 I was four years old, that last year before they send you off to school and chain you to a desk for the rest of your life. It was a golden time of endless wonder, every day a wide open mystery of make believe and utter simplicity. JFK was in the White House and most Americans had never heard of a place called Vietnam. Not that I was aware of any of that. I was just playing with my big brothers down at the lake and looking forward to a grilled cheese sandwich and Campbell’s tomato soup for lunch...I grew up as a vegetarian and didn’t taste meat until I was 17, when I snuck out for a taco and never went back.”

He spent his teen years in Ventura, later earning an M.A. in philosophy and serving as a professor of philosophy and humanities at Southwestern College in Chula Vista. “After college, I was a marijuana farmer up in Santa Barbara. We did it mostly as a hobby, and people started coming around — first friends and then people we’d never seen before. It got super creepy in a hurry. Suddenly, it became far more pleasant to not be a marijuana farmer.”

He co-founded the Coyote Problem in 2002, but has since gone back to his solo singer/songwriter roots. “My music gets classified as Americana or alt-country, which I think means folk, rock, and country all smashed together...I don’t know any jazz chords, not even one.”

In February 2009, Bolland announced “The Coyote Problem is on hiatus. We’re taking a break. Maybe a long one...being the front man in a rock and roll band doesn’t hold the same joy for me as it once did. Instead, I feel my joy pulling me in other directions. Artists are restless by nature.” In March 2009, he went to Washington D.C. to sing “Martin King & Coretta” and “The Darkness in Me” at the national conference of the Peace Alliance and Americans for a Department of Peace.

After the Covid pandemic of 2020-2022, Bolland expressed his joy at being able to play live gigs again, although he had concerns about the long term effects of the shutdown on aspiring players. "All these TikTok/Instagram/YouTube/Facebook videos of young musicians shredding on their guitars/basses/drums leave me worried," says Bolland. "A new zeitgeist of music-making is emerging, the odd notion that virtuosity is a gymnastics exercise performed in solitary isolation. It also helps if you have affluent parents who can set you up with tens of thousands of dollars of gear and tech...we make our environments, and then our environments make us. A whole generation of kids is coming up who think that making music is something you do alone with a laptop."

Sponsored

Upcoming Local Shows

No shows scheduled

Post a show View show history
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader