Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields have announced new Dead Man’s Bones music for October 27, bringing their ghost-and-monster-inspired project back just before Halloween. The duo shared the news in a spooky Instagram video on October 22, 17 years after their self-titled debut album.
Gosling’s partner, Eva Mendes, had been dropping hints. “Trying to summon new music from Dead Man’s Bones,” she wrote on Instagram.
When a fan asked whether she knew “something we don’t,” she replied, “Maybe I do…” After the announcement, she wrote: “He came through on his promise to me.”
Released in 2009, the band’s debut featured the Silverlake Conservatory Children’s Choir. Gosling and Shields set out to play every instrument themselves, learning as they went.
“The goal was to figure it out,” Gosling said, acknowledging that others helped make the album work. The pair haven’t performed live since 2010.
Gosling has sung on screen since then, including on “I’m Just Ken,” but Dead Man’s Bones grew out of a shared love of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. Earlier this year, he recalled riding it at 12 and finding comfort in its approach to death: “Well, maybe it’s not so bad or scary. Maybe it’s fun.”
He also cited Disney’s The Skeleton Dance and The Old Mill as influences on his taste for the spooky: “They’ve an angle on [scary things] that’s very unique.”