Ryan Gosling is returning to music, and this time it is not a fictional pianist or a scene-stealing doll. The Hollywood actor has revived Dead Man’s Bones, the band he formed with musician Zach Shields, and the duo will release new music on October 27. The announcement arrived through an Instagram video with an appropriately eerie tone, featuring a haunting voice reciting a poem about ghosts, shadows and the night before a young girl appears to deliver the release date. The clip fits the band’s long-standing fascination with the macabre, a sensibility that has defined its identity since the beginning.
The upcoming release marks the first new music from Dead Man’s Bones in 17 years, following the band’s self-titled debut album in 2009. That record was a curious, atmospheric project built around ghost stories and backed by a children’s choir, an unlikely combination that nonetheless earned a devoted following. For Gosling, it was a genuine creative outlet rather than a celebrity side project, and the long gap since then has only added to the sense that this is something he returns to when the impulse genuinely strikes.
Eva Mendes, Gosling’s partner, appears to have seen it coming. She had hinted at the band’s return through recent social media posts, writing at one point that she was trying to summon new music from Dead Man’s Bones. After the announcement landed on Thursday night, she offered a characteristically wry response, noting that he had come through on his promise to her. That small exchange captures something relatable about the announcement: behind a carefully staged video and a decade and a half of silence, there is a household conversation that has clearly been running for a while.
Music has been woven through some of Gosling’s most recognizable screen work. In Damien Chazelle’s 2016 musical La La Land, he played jazz pianist Sebastian opposite Emma Stone, performing songs including City of Stars and A Lovely Night, a turn that earned him a Golden Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy. He returned to the musical spotlight in Greta Gerwig’s 2023 blockbuster Barbie, playing Ken and performing I’m Just Ken, which became one of the film’s most talked-about moments. He performed the song live at the Oscars in 2024 to a standing ovation. Those performances made his musical instincts visible to a much wider audience, but they were always a different animal from Dead Man’s Bones, which trades polish and showmanship for mood, texture and a certain deliberate strangeness.
As a movie star, Gosling has moved between critically acclaimed films and commercial blockbusters with unusual ease, from The Notebook and Blue Valentine to Drive, The Big Short, La La Land, Blade Runner 2049, Barbie and most recently Project Hail Mary. That range has kept him in demand for two decades, and it has also given him the freedom to pursue projects like this one without commercial pressure. Dead Man’s Bones does not need to top charts to justify its existence, which is precisely what makes its return interesting.
The question now is what 17 years of distance will sound like. The debut album arrived at a moment when indie rock was receptive to its theatrical, storybook approach, and the cultural landscape has shifted considerably since then. Nostalgia for that era is real, but it is not the same as a receptive audience, and a band built on ghost stories and children’s choirs could land as a charming curiosity or as something more substantial depending on how the new material is framed. Fans of the original record will be hoping for continuity; newer listeners drawn in by Gosling’s screen career may come with entirely different expectations. What the release ultimately proves is that the project was never a passing whim, and that after 17 years, the ghosts are still worth summoning.
