Ron Gallo shares his new single + video for "PLEASE DON'T DIE," off of his upcoming album PEACEMEAL, due out February 12th via New West Records. Under the Radar premiered the track and praised it as "a morphing R&B head-nodder with languid hooks geling over subtly moving parts".
"PLEASE DON'T DIE" explores the brutal realities of life through death. A somber march, swirling with a heavy tremolo guitar and sporadic spurts of electric drums, Gallo's production induces the anxiety and desperation surrounding the song's message. The video, shot and directed by Dylan Reyes, was inspired in part by the real-life moment that led to the creation of the song.
"One day last year Chiara and I were leaving an immigration lawyers office that gave us some bad news during an already crazy stressful time and on the walk to the car Chiara fainted right on the sidewalk. It scared the s out of me because I had no idea what was happening. She was fine of course but when we got home I wrote "PLEASE DON'T DIE". I've mostly avoided the topic of love in songs because it didn't seem like it needed anymore coverage but looking at it this way, inspired by a very real moment felt like I finally had a genuine, different perspective to talk about it from - how incredible it is to find your person but also terrifying because you know someday you have to inevitably lose them and all the irrational worrying that can cause by really letting someone in. I don't know why love can sometimes make you think about death more but it does - may sound dark but if anything it's a reason to not take anyone or anything for granted."
Trying to box Ron Gallo up is like trying to clutch water in your hands. He doesn't think you fit in a box either. On a lifelong chase of himself, and a 3-year long tour, he found it frustrating at times too. "Everything in life flipped so I took a year off to figure out what I was about all over again, what I really like. I felt like I was living in some world I built based on 2% of myself, I got really down, then really burnt out. what about the other 98%?" One day it's orange, next day mint green, today he's looking for a utility vest in a hardware store, tomorrow he's buying yellow pants in the women's section of a thrift store. He can't sit still, his moods are wild but always returns back to a childlike, optimistic center. "That's me! my only constant is that I'm all over the place" and so when it came time to make music again - he wanted to figure out how to make music like this, music like him.
This stems from a period of self-embrace - tastes, colors, joy, the ugly s, growing up outside of philly on 90's hip-hop, top 40, candy, skateboarding and video games, living now in his own house in Nashville, a place where he feels mostly alien. Last fall, he started REALLYNICE.world - a creative outlet that started as a place for him to just share thoughts and whatever he was into and has since morphed into a digital festival and a clothes line.
"Making this new stuff felt like color-blocking, like if it was a shirt it would have a yellow left sleeve, orange right sleeve, green mid-section, pink pockets and a white collar, no metaphor. Might not make sense, but that's a shirt I want to wear right now."
Gallo wrote and started recording these songs during a three month period of self-isolation last summer when immigration forced him back to America from Italy where he planned to stay with his now-wife, and collaborator, Chiara. After a trip around the world, mostly spent living and recording in Italy, 9 months later he finished these recordings in the same room they started during pandemic self-isolation working remotely with Ben H. Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective) who provided additional production and mixing. "Now and then feel oddly similar. I want to be one of the people at least trying to make people happy as the world goes through some major growing pains".
