Ron Gallo never set out to be a musician. In fact, picking up a guitar came without much intention at all. “I can’t say there really was much of a passion to play guitar,” he admits. “I kind of just thought it was a thing I should have.”
“I think the thing I was most intrigued by was writing songs,” he continued. The songwriting on Gallo’s earlier work balanced existential unease with sharp humor, pairing cheeky, self-aware lyrics with catchy rock arrangements that placed him alongside some of the great indie modern songwriters. The energy of those records carried Gallo onto major stages like Coachella and the Newport Folk Festival.
But with his 2025 release, Checkmate, Gallo pulls away from the rock-star bravado that once defined him. Instead, he turns inward, writing songs less concerned with spectacle and more invested in meaning, responsibility, and what it means to exist within a society that feels increasingly fractured.
“For me, [my music] is a lot of observations about the external world, these bigger issues inside humanity and the structure of everything,” he said. “I am away observing and commenting on them…I want to use myself to try to contribute something instead of making songs about bullshit that nobody cares about in my personal life. I always want to make a contribution in some way.”
Checkmate is a blend of indie rock and folk that explores the end of the world through vulnerability and honesty. The album stands apart within Gallo’s catalog, marking a defining moment in his evolution as a solo artist.
Though Gallo is a force on his own, his musical journey began within the collaborative chaos of bands like Toy Soldiers and The Minks—two projects that helped shape his restless creativity and sharpen his voice long before he stepped fully into the spotlight alone.
“I think the reason I went off on my own was that when you are in a band with other people, there is kind of an idea about what the band is, what the band sounds like,” he explained. “That was kind of constricting to me, and I think towards the end of my last band, that’s what it was…there was so much more I wanted to experiment with and try.” This solo switch allowed Gallo to pursue this new sound with Checkmate. Despite what audiences may think, the shift in sound came without concern over losing his existing fan base, many of whom discovered him through viral rock tracks like “Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me” from his 2017 album HEAVY META.
“I know this is a bit more of a drastic change, but I have gotten to a point where I dont really care about it so much anymore. I am a different person than the one who wrote that song,” he continued. “I still love those songs, they are still a part of me, but whatever idea people have about that, it just wouldn’t be honest to go and make that same record…I already did that. It still exists, I’ll still play it live, it’s still me, but to make that again would be forcing something that isnt really there.”
That same commitment to authenticity extends beyond the music itself. Social media also plays an important part in Gallo’s creativity. Early last year, Gallo started his “7AM Songs of Resistance for the Internet” series on Instagram. In this series, Gallo writes frequent, short songs that often cover topics of social politics, current news, and cultural events that he shares with his audience.
“I have all these thoughts and feelings about the world, and it doesn’t serve the purpose to take 6 months to record these songs and then release them, like it’s gotta be instant. I just prop the phone up, write the song in 5 minutes about whatever I am thinking about that day, and share it. That’s been something that has really seemed to resonate with people.”
He continued, “I have spent so many years touring and connecting with people in that way, making records, and doing it in a pretty conventional sense, so there is a part of me that has been resistant to social media, but I started to embrace it.”
Gallo also challenged his more “conventional” sense of how music is shared when he helped create Really Nice Fest in early 2020, a virtual music festival. “[It happened during the] initial pandemic era, and it was just a natural thing to gravitate to. We were all stuck in our homes and wondering how we could connect to people and still play for people.”
“I think we did one of the first live streams of that era, by necessity, because we had a festival get cancelled right as the pandemic hit, like that day. My whole band flew into town that day before we knew it was cancelled, so we were like, ‘We’re all here, why dont we try to do a livestream thing?’ We did an Instagram live, full band show, and thousands of people from all over the world who were also locked in their houses tuned in and sent all these donations; it was really crazy.”
Despite the success of the event, Gallo admitted the idea was short-lived due to the end of the pandemic and the return of live music.
While Really Nice Fest may have been a product of its moment, it underscored a throughline in Gallo’s career: an insistence on sincerity over spectacle. Across albums, bands, and platforms, his work continues to evolve while staying true to himself alone. With Checkmate, Gallo isn’t chasing who he once was. He’s simply making space for who he is now.
Image taken from Spotify | Interviewed on November 18, 2025
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