On the very last day of recording what became the album checkmate, Ron Gallo wrote and recorded the title track. Which, he describes, half-jokingly, as “my first true love song that also happens to be the best love song ever written“. It encapsulates the entire purpose of the album which takes his previous motto, “the world is fucked, but the universe is inside you” and changes it to, “the world is ending, what can I hold on to?“.
There would be no Ron Gallo without countering any moment of sincerity with humor, diversion or self-sabotage. But with this album, much like its front cover, he set out to “stop hiding” – emerge from behind the wall of absurdity, instruments and noise. The result is an album that started with just voice and guitar and ended not too drastically far from that. It is an exercise in the things he thinks the world needs most in this moment: empathy, softness (and maybe even a reduced heart rate).
On the single, Ron says, “I may be the only person on earth that thinks this but “Checkmate” is the best love song ever written. And I can say that (not fully straight-faced) because it really came from somewhere else on the last day of recording and instantly became the entire album. For me, this song IS the sensation of being alive in 2025 while attempting to possess decency, care, and love deeply in a world dominated by forces that seem hellbent on fear and destroying everything good about humanity. This song is clinging to the things we love the most while the world gets turnt upside down. It is the true love I have in my life and it is this undying love I have for humanity that I can’t seem to shake no matter how frustrating we are as a species. This song is one of those rare moments where I felt I was able to say exactly what I wanted to say and make it sound exactly how I wanted it to sound with quite literally no time and minimal effort. It just poured out and it’s really sincere which is new for me. I tear up every time I hear or even think about the last line of the chorus to this song – “There could never be enough time. You are my life.” Not because it’s some profound statement but because I really mean it. Not sure I can express love better than facing the brutal reality of it – the eternal, the only constant, that which makes everything and the only thing worth living for – does have an inevitable ending in our minds – which is why it is so terrifying, especially now in a time where everything feels so fragile. That dramatic/intense enough for everyone? Don’t worry, I’ll probably only release joke songs or instrumental music after this… Checkmate!”
Love is at the heart of this album, but it’s surrounded by apocalypse. Less fluffy and much more “if you had five minutes to live how would you spend it? What really matters when we’re rattled from the hollow procession of modern life in a system that equates value with production?” The answer is the people you love. Human connection. That’s it. And for Ron Gallo, his life and musical partner, Chiara, not only played and sang all over this album but inspired this album by being his answer.
These songs began in Italy, where Ron and Chiara met, and where they spend part of the year in Chiara’s hometown. This outside perspective brought a sense of calm, but sharpened his ongoing critique of late-stage American capitalism. “Fantasy” explores how our ideas of things are sometimes better than the reality, “it’s not too late, we’re not yet fucked, there is still somewhere left to run”: a double-entendre for loyalty in relationships but also the very concept of America. “Feel-It-All Phase” is about finding peace and sensitivity by giving up on the hardened, hustle of modern life. “Giant Silent Disco” is about pushing forward when it feels like humanity has gone too far in the wrong direction and that we need a reset button. Stark vignettes of inner life together, love as a world within a world in times of turmoil: “Free Advice”, “I’ve Already Won”, “One Catch Of The Eye”. A simulation of being held up at gunpoint and what he could say to stop the assailant: “Gun To My Head” and a question he’s longed obsessed over, believing the answer could reveal something essential about humanity. Two calming confrontations with late-stage capitalism in “Too Tired To Love You” and “Somebody God Would Wanna Chill With”. And “Trampoline”, a live recorded ode to his late-cousin/brother, Garry, who passed away suddenly earlier this year.
The day after that final checkmate recording session in late February, about a month into the second Trump term, he began a now 5 month-long ongoing project called 7AM Songs of Resistance for The Internet, which involves him waking up around 7AM, assessing his thoughts on the news and current socio-political situation in America, writing a song about it in 5 minutes and posting a scrappy performance of it on social media. This series has resulted in 65+ songs and has seen a few mega-viral moments with his satirical reaction to the Trump/Zelenskyy Oval Office meeting “If Only Zelenskyy Had A Nice Suit” and his anti-Christian nationalism anthem “Jesus Was a Radical”. The songs have caught the attention of SZA, Kathleen Hanna, Moby, Hozier, actor Mark Ruffalo and millions worldwide.
What remains here is distilled: raw thoughts about love, identity, and survival in a collapsing world. With checkmate, he finds himself aligned with a new audience who have found his music through social media riffs turned viral smashes, 7am Songs, who come with no preconceived notions, only a desire to connect. The personal vulnerability found in these songs are far more relatable than Gallo could have first imagined. Inner dialogues we all seem to be having, but struggling to find the words for, until now.
Thoughts Words Action 