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".
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