"checkmate"

what is the length of love?

“checkmate” the song is out now. “checkmate” the album is coming 10/17/25 on kill rock stars.

this song is my life. i’m fine if it’s the last song I ever put out or the only song anyone ever hears.

to me it is everything, it’s you, it’s me, it’s alive in 2025. love, of any kind, is all there is and all that is worth anything. it’s a topic I have avoided for so long. but I found it and found a way.

It was the last day of recording and we had a full albums worth of songs done, then I got a feeling we needed something else to tie it all together. And so this song was written and recorded on that same day. It immediately became the whole album.

The visual above is a video from the album cover photo shoot with Rèka Jakabffy in Marina Di Ravenna, Italy, not far from where Chiara and I met in 2018. Rèka took all the photographs for this album.

album artwork

“checkmate”
chords: E D A

lyrics:

I know it’s checkmate when the king gets cornered 
But the queen is still the strongest piece
I may be good, but I’m still a person
So there’s only so good that I can be
I hate the taste of salt water
But it makes the other water taste sweet
Nothing ever loses its luster
We just get used to it eventually
Maybe it’s all perfect and all of my doubts
Are because I do not know if I deserve it
We’ve changed house a thousand times
I think that the ghosts just might 
Be attached to me

Just another hundred thousand miles
What is the length of love?
There could never be enough time

Everyday I wake to imaginary flames
Dissipated by the softness of your face
Sometimes I fantasize about simpler times
But wouldn’t go back to yesterday
Sometimes I wonder how people get so evil
Then I think about someone causing you pain
If this whole ship goes down, 
I know what i’ll put my arms around
One minute there is eternity

Just another hundred million miles
What is the length of love?
There could never be enough time

Just another hundred million miles
What is the length of love?
You are my life

In the dark you might find the thing were all composed of, our mere purpose, diluted, absolute anomalies feeling worthless, everyone is a miracle, even your nemesis, you either know it or forgot it, we’re not supposed to live like this. In my head or on my phone it’s the end of the world as we know it, perpetual beating down of our nature then I look out my window, I see sun, blue sky, a dog walking by, it taught me empathy, then a song comes on that reminds me of being 13 swimming in a safety net of oblivion. As bad as things can seem to get it can never really be all that bad because of you. We go together so anywhere is fine. It’s what I hang on to. There are no words just all these failed attempts to explain it. The feeling. Checkmate. 

Just another hundred billion miles
What is the length of love?
There could never be enough time

So just another hundred trillion miles
What is the length of love?
There could never be enough time

So just another hundred gazillion miles
What is the length of love?
There could never be enough
You are my life

So just another hundred infinities 

Credits:
Recorded by Jerry Bernhardt at Really Nice Studios
Produced by Jerry Bernhardt, Ron Gallo and Chiara D’Anzieri.
Ron Gallo - lead vocals, Casio
Chiara D’Anzieri - bass, vocals
Jerry Bernhardt - Guitar, drum machine, vocals
Mixed by Josh St. Moblo
Mastered by Adam Gonsalves at Telegraph