He is playing from the heart.
Big-haired rocker Ron Gallo will surge onto a Bushwick stage on July 5, an intimate follow-up to recent gigs at the Bonnarro festival and at Milwaukee’s Summerfest. His music may come with sophisticated titles — his upcoming album, due out in August, is titled “Heavy Meta” — but the music comes straight from the primitive side of rock ’n’ roll.
“I know some chords, and I utilize about one scale,” Gallo admits. “I’m trying to evoke primal sounds from the instrument as opposed to being gentle and playing with finesse. That’s a lot more fun for me than learning scales.”
In the battle of head vs. heart, Gallo lands solidly on the side of the latter. “I lean that way entirely,” he said.
Gallo and his band bring a primal energy to the stage, whether playing a coveted spot on the Bonnaroo Festival lineup, or an intimate gig at Bushwick’s Alphaville.
“It doesn’t matter where we play,” said Gallo. “Ultimately it’s going to be the same thing energy- and effort-wise.”
A self-described musical late bloomer, Gallo says that his early exposure to music was limited to Top-40 radio and ’90s one-hit wonders. “There’s really not much in those early years to take from beside the obvious stuff,” he chuckles.
In college, Gallo dug deeper into music and music history, and his music bears the influence of some important artists. The backing vocals on the hard-rocking “Kill the Medicine Man” are reminiscent of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” And Gallo’s overall musical approach recalls the wild post-Big Star work of Alex Chilton.
Gallo, who spent his formative years in Philadelphia, sees some parallels between that city and the Brooklyn of today: “gentrification, development, artisanal chemistry coffee shops, boutique hotels, fancy restaurants, farm-to-table.” He thinks he knows why some Brooklyn hipsters are relocating. “I guess it makes sense — in Philly, you pay a quarter of what you’d pay to live in a shoebox in Brooklyn.”
Ron Gallo at Alphaville (140 Wilson Ave. between Willoughby Avenue and Suydam Street in Bushwick, www.alpha
