WHAT IS RON GALLO?

In May 2024, Ron Gallo performed his first solo shows in 7 years. Two sold out nights - one at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, PA and one on the rooftop of the Sultan Room in Brooklyn, NY. Just him and a classical guitar playing songs from his now 5 album catalog spanning from 2017’s critically acclaimed debut HEAVY META to his most recent Kill Rock Stars debut, 2023’s FOREGROUND MUSIC, all adapted for an intimate and almost “opposite of the original” setting. It was also an opportunity to test out new songs from an album he is currently working on for the very first time. The shows were both live recorded and filmed with selected songs to eventually be released as the RON SOLO LIVE EP.

There’s a fine, fine line between optimism and crushing nihilism, and it’s a border that courses through Ron Gallo’s music like the neon orange barriers and construction tape that accent gentrifying neighborhoods across cities everywhere; it’s unavoidable. There’s a central conceit at the heart of Gallo’s music, which is that we’re probably doomed, but what’s the point in laying down to die instead of raging against the vast and plain as day inequalities that plague our nation and those across the globe? The only thing more pointless than hopefulness is hopelessness, and with this belief, Gallo recorded his newest album and Kill Rock Stars debut, FOREGROUND MUSIC, confronting the villains of our society and helps those crushed by them by finding a way to laugh at the absurdity of it all. With FOREGROUND MUSIC, Gallo screams at the developers turning neighborhoods into unremarkable AirBnB advertisements, corporate overlords deciding how much music costs, and extremists hellbent on bringing forth an apocalypse of racial and civil destruction.

For the uninitiated, Ron Gallo’s career has been building towards this moment since he first became *wink-wink* popular with the release of Heavy Meta. He moved to Nashville, played shows, signed with a label, hit Coachella, Bonnaroo, Gov Ball, ACL, and more, and toured around the world or played shows with Spoon, Parquet Courts, Wilco, and more. If he wasn’t quite indie royalty, he was adjacent, shining his NPR accolades and framing Vice writeups. If all this sounds silly, it’s precisely how Gallo felt. “It was bizarre to suddenly be doing all this stuff I never thought I would do, so in January 2018 we put out the Really Nice Guys EP, a concept album and mockumentary film commenting on the absurdities of my newfound role as a professional touring musician.” There’s always been a heaping dose of irony in Gallo’s music, but it serves a functional purpose: to interrogate the gap between who we present ourselves as and who we are. That theme animates FOREGROUND MUSIC, which is Gallo at his sharpest, throwing barbs every which way while turning the mirror inwards in equal doses. In Gallo’s own words, it is what an existential crisis would sound like if it could also be fun. Despite the chaos, the broken spirits, and defeated dreams that dance around the merry go round, Gallo can’t help but infuse his music with a joyful charm, one that comes from a deep and sincere place of love for people and protecting the things we hold sacred. Ron Gallo makes a staggering and life-affirming conclusion: “The world is completely fucked, but the universe is inside you.”