Ron Gallo will release his new studio album FOREGROUND MUSIC on March 3rd 2023 via Kill Rock Stars. The album was engineered by Ron Gallo himself and Jerry Bernhardt and the master was handled by Ryan Schwabe (Pussy Riot, Princess Nokia, Tierra Whack). The title track is out now.
With the new collection, 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. It confronts the villains of our society and helps those crushed by them by finding a way to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Over the course of 11 songs, Gallo moves from fuzz to lounge jazz to freaky pop to post-punk and back again to rock music, all the while taking aim at any and everything. He takes aim at male entitlement, the age of anxiety, apathy vs. action, gentrification, narcissism, retail therapy, xenophobia, the dread of future generations, right wing extremists, capitalism, climate change and the experience of having a loved-one who is an addict.
Despite the chaos, Gallo infuses the album with a joyful charm, one that comes from a sincere place of love for people and protecting the things we hold sacred. Love between Gallo and his listeners, between Gallo and the strum of a guitar, between Gallo and the world. By the end of FOREGROUND MUSIC, Ron Gallo makes a staggering and life-affirming conclusion: 'The world is completely fucked, but the universe is inside you.'
After the singles ENTITLED MAN and ANYTHING BUT THIS, Ron Gallo releases this new single today. How can you be alive in 2022 and not be anxious? Arriving alongside an official video in which a woman’s house is robbed while she is immersed in Ron Gallo’s VR World, the bouncy, garage rock lead single FOREGROUND MUSIC shows that the existential crisis is normal and can still sound like a decently fun time. "This song is stream-of-conscious of the wide variety of anxieties that fuel life today. An ode to all the 3AM’s I woke up in a panic over everything from the end of the world to regretting everything I've ever said or made in my entire life. Maybe there is something specifically wrong with me or it’s an America-specific issue but how can you be alive right now and not be anxious? This song might be the closest to what it feels to be in my head - laughing through the crisis - hence why I think it’s a good name for the genre of music I make." - says Ron Gallo. Watch the video below.
Gallo has earned a fervent and loyal live following, sharing the stage with the likes of Spoon, Parquet Courts, Ty Segall, The Black Angels, Thee Oh Sees, Wilco, and Courtney Barnett. He has also made festival appearances at Coachella, Bonnaroo, Pukkelpop, Best Kept Secret and Levitation.