Cornelius had two colleagues he saw regularly. One hated pineapple on pizza. The other hated Bon Jovi. He happens to love both. He got tired of the mockery and christened his favourite pizza after the second man’s worst nightmare, calling it Pizza Bon Jovi: mushroom, pineapple, olives. The queen of fruits in full glory. The song City Speak built around that pizza eventually became “Every Day Is A Good Day For A Pizza Bon Jovi“, track eleven on the band’s 2024 debut “Holding Water”. The video premieres above today on IDIOTEQ, ahead of the Mainz/Wiesbaden trio’s second European tour.
It started as a joke, Anna says, and the principle held even after the laughing stopped. “You don’t get to have an opinion about things that don’t affect you.” Anna drums for City Speak (and plays in Black Square), and her read on the song takes the joke well past the pizza. “It’s intended as a fun way of saying fuck off,” Anna said. “It’s a pretty mild example, but we’ve all experienced being made fun of for how we look, what we wear, what we enjoy, how we speak. None of that compares to the violence done to people just existing and being who they are.”
The video itself is mostly the recipe. City Speak directed it, Cornelius edited it, and the shoot doubled as a pizza date. “We wanted to make a video of the recipe, and it was just really fun to make,” Anna said. “We love pizza dates. What video shoot would be complete without getting to eat pizza at the end of it?”
The song sits eleven tracks deep into “Holding Water”, a twelve-track LP released in August 2024 across four labels: Shield Recordings in the Netherlands, Snappy Little Numbers in the US, Cat’s Claw Records in the UK, and Keep it a Secret Records in Germany (Cornelius’s own DIY operation, running punk releases since 2010, which also publishes the zine German Compliment). The pressing was modest: 300 12″ LPs on ice ice baby vinyl, 200 CDs. Musicologist Torben MΓΌller pinned the sound somewhere around “’77 punk with a bit of TSOL”. On this song specifically: drums and bass tracked by Pip Monheim at Kreativfabrik Wiesbaden, guitars by Bonny Somalia, vocals recorded by the band, mix by Fernando Etchgoyen at Can’t Fail Studios in Buenos Aires, master by Paul Miner in the US.
The rest of “Holding Water” handles patriarchy, obedience to authority, and exploitation by multinational corporations. Pizza Bon Jovi is the band’s lighter end. The verses keep the bit going:
Go happy on the toppings / and let that dough rise up
Add olives if you want to / and sauce that fucker up
I’m standing by my choices / my best discovery
I made my favorite pizza / and called it Bon Jovi
The first chorus is about pizza: “This is mine / I’ll make it how I choose / It’s not your place / to tell me what to do.” The second is about people: “This is me / I can be who I choose / It’s not your place / to tell me what to do.” Same melody, different stakes.
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Eighteen months in, Anna says the record still sits well with her. “I’m really proud of it. I love the extra harmonies and instruments on the album that we can’t do live. I’m really proud of the amazing work our friends did to help bring it to life and the tiny ideas and details that somehow become the best part of the song.” The songs themselves span a long stretch of time. “The record is the first clutch of songs Cornelius and I wrote together, and they encompass a long time span. We also tracked the first songs almost three years before the record came out.” The authorship maps cleanly to specific tracks: “Caging the Beast is all Corni, Doing it Wrong is all me. Science and Pizza were relatively early and Heavy Heart came right at the end. I wrote the chorus for Coffee as Corni was tracking the verses. Some of that spontaneity made some of my favourite things on the record.”
Anna can feel the evolution in the writing. “I’m not sure if it’s something other people would notice. I like that though. An album is supposed to be a snapshot of the time it was made. On some level more of a concept or consistency would be good, and I’m looking forward to writing more and seeing where this evolution leads.”
So why this song, with a video, now, and not something from whatever’s next? Anna doesn’t dress it up. “The world’s getting darker. We’re a corona-project and the unprecedented times have just continued. Let’s have some fun before we die. To a certain extent we just deal with serious themes in a silly way. There’s enough very smart and serious people providing analyses of what is going wrong with the world. We like to be friends with those people, but will never be them. We cheer them up with pizza.”
Live, the song works as the breather. The band has been touring with new guitarist Lasse since a recent lineup change, and Anna is pulling old vocal hooks back into the set. “I miss the whoas. We’re bringing that back live, our new guitarist is an absolute powerhouse and can do anything we ask him too. It’s amazing to have someone so talented in the band.” She has one stage daydream that hasn’t materialised: “In my rockstar in a lunchbox dreams people start clapping along in the middle completely of their own volition. This has however never happened. Otherwise it’s a fun little break between the screaming.”
The summer run is the band’s first real tour since 2022 after years of trying to get one together. “We don’t make music to play in the practice room and stay home. Punk is an international thing. There’s so many ways you can communicate with someone just with a band shirt. Going different places, meeting new people, seeing new countries and playing in front of people you’ve never met. We’ve been trying for a couple of years to do an actual tour and are really excited it’s finally happening.” Anna singled out one stop: “We’re really excited to be playing SAWA in Croatia. My old band played there years ago and I haven’t made it back yet. The people are all so lovely and throw so much work into putting on this festival. It’s completely DIY and has an incredible feeling.”
City Speak – Summer Tour 2026
11/07 (Sat): DIY Disaster Festival, Marburg, Germany
13/07 (Mon): Music House, Graz, Austria w/ Belvedere
14/07 (Tue): Budapest, Hungary (tbc)
16/07 (Thu): SAWA Fest, Ε½upanja, Croatia
18/07 (Sat): Arcigong, Gorizia, Italy
19/07 (Sun): Balloonfabrik, Augsburg, Germany w/ Split Dogs
17/09 (Thu): DreikΓΆnigskeller, Frankfurt, Germany w/ Public Serpents
18/09 (Fri): Wageni, Bochum, Germany w/ The Dead End Kids
What Anna wants people leaving those rooms with isn’t complicated. “People should leave with one of our riffs stuck in their head. And suddenly noticing defensive architecture wherever they go. And considering the violent motivations of Antifa Orcas. And maybe a record. Then go get pizza, however you like it.”
If you know a good spot in your city, let the band know.
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