Ryan Gosling’s spooky indie band with Zach Shields announced its first new music since 2009 — arriving Oct. 27, just in time for Halloween.
By Theon — The Superfan, CelebnMusic247
Some comebacks you can see coming from a year away. This one rose from the grave on schedule. Dead Man’s Bones — the spooky indie rock band Ryan Gosling formed with musician Zach Shields — announced Thursday in a social media video that new music is coming Oct. 27, per Stereogum. It is the band’s first new music in 17 years, landing, appropriately, four days before Halloween.
The coolest curio of 2009
For anyone who missed the band’s first life: Gosling put Dead Man’s Bones together in the stretch between Lars and the Real Girl (2007) and Blue Valentine (2010), when he was an indie film star dabbling in indie music. The group’s self-titled 2009 debut, released on ANTI-, was recorded with the Silverlake Conservatory Children’s Choir backing them up — gothic, playful, ghost-obsessed songs built for exactly the season they’re now returning in — and the band did a little touring around Halloween that year. Then Gosling became, as Stereogum puts it, about as mainstream as movie stars get, and the band became a beloved footnote. The label connection suggests the story continues properly: ANTI- posted the announcement video too, pointing to the same label that released the debut handling whatever arrives on the 27th.
A promise kept, apparently
The trail of breadcrumbs is half the fun. Before the announcement, Redditors noticed that Gosling and Eva Mendes’ stylist Mark Avery was posting about “Dead Man’s Bones on Halloween.” Mendes herself shared the teaser on her own Instagram with the caption: “He came through on his promise to me.” Gosling has been dodging the reunion question charmingly for years — asked during Barbie promotion in 2023 whether the band might return, he said, “Maybe. Never say never?” — and NME raised it again while he was promoting Project Hail Mary earlier this year, per Stereogum. The context makes the return sweeter: Project Hail Mary is one of the year’s biggest films, Gosling sang his way onto the pop charts with “I’m Just Ken,” and his next two pictures are a Star Wars movie, Starfighter, and a Marvel movie, Ghost Rider. A man with that calendar does not revive his 17-years-dormant Halloween band for the money. He does it because it’s Halloween, and because he promised.
The 247 Take — Dead Man’s Bones were always the most charming line on Gosling’s résumé precisely because they were unnecessary — a movie star’s sincere, strange little side project with a children’s choir and a graveyard fixation. Seventeen years later, with nothing left to prove in either industry, he’s coming back for the same reason he started: it’s fun, it’s spooky, and October is short. Whatever drops on the 27th, the season just got its soundtrack.
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Sources: Stereogum
