Canadian actor Ryan Gosling, 28, has a band with his best friend called Dead Man’s Bones and they’re putting out a CD. I checked out their MySpace page and I can’t say the music is my taste at all. It’s all dark and cacophonous with a very simple melody. Gosling sings in this weird kind of raspy deep voice, and in what seems to be their first single, “In The Room Where You Sleep,” a children’s choir sings the chorus in the background, most of them dressed in Halloween costumes in the video. It’s hard to see how they fit in with the song, which doesn’t amount to much. The video is cool though, and I think the kids are cute.

Maybe I just don’t get it, though. In an interview with Pitchfork.com, Gosling and his friend in the band, Zach Shields, say they’re going for that kind of ragged feel and are making a concept album about the supernatural that purposefully sounds unfinished and amateurish. They worked with a children’s choir for months and liken their music to a child’s drawing that you stick on the fridge. The interviewer heaps praise on them and compares Gosling’s voice to Roy Orbison and Bryan Ferry:

Integral to the creation of Dead Man’s Bones was the pair’s motivation to keep things as raw and real as possible, stripped down to reveal even the limitations of their musicianship. When it came time to record the album, Gosling and Shields created a set of White Stripes-esque rules to follow so as to not taint the purity of the process. Rules like no click tracks or electric guitars, no more than three takes, and playing all of the instruments themselves (along with producer Tim Anderson of Ima Robot). Gosling played cello and piano for the first time, while Shields took up the drums. Their desire to work under these conditions stemmed from bad music industry experiences in the past.

“We had both made music before, and both of us hated what we did,” Shields said. “We worked with people who were super professional, really accomplished musicians. And I always felt– I think Ryan felt the same way– everyone I was working with, I was trying to step up to their level and be as good as they were, technically. When we recorded before, everyone we worked with, they tried to make us good, and you know, we’re not, we’re amateurs. They would put it through a click track, have us do a million takes, Auto-Tune my voice because I can’t sing well.”

Gosling’s singing also suffered under the weight of conventional studio expectations. On the Dead Man’s Bones album, Shields’ indie-everyman voice complements Gosling’s more mannered tone, which exhibits a bit of Roy Orbison (or, some might say, Bryan Ferry) tremolo. However, encouraging Gosling to display his natural talent wasn’t all that easy. Shields explained, “I’d hear him do karaoke, or when he thinks nobody’s listening, like he’s in the other room singing, with his natural voice, when he’s singing and nobody’s listening, it has this old quality, like this 50s kind of croonery feel. Every time I would hear him singing, without trying to sound like anything, that’s how he sings. So we were trying to record one session, and they were trying to make us both sound so modern, which he doesn’t. I was like, ‘You know, you should just sing in your natural voice,’ and they kind of made fun of us. They were like, ‘Oh that’s goofy, that’s silly.'”

Gosling added, “I was always embarrassed because I sang like that, so I always tried to make my voice sound more contemporary.”

To combat those pressures, the duo went for a lo-fi aesthetic. Gosling said, “There was always some kind of function on the computer, a filter that would assimilate the thing that you wanted, and we didn’t understand why you couldn’t just record the thing that you wanted. Like, why you had to do the computerized version of it, why can’t you just record it? It’s more fun that way anyway, because you have to design a way to get that sound. For instance, if you want something to sound like it was on a PA system after a wedding and there’s a few people dancing, why not just create that situation and record that?”

The album is currently in the final mixing stage, and the pair is currently discussing distribution options to have it come out in June. Gosling and Shields are in the process of making videos for all of the songs, working with the likes of sculptor Arthur Ganson and the creators of the Adult Swim show “Robot Chicken”.

[From Pitchfork.com via People]

The second song I listened to on their MySpace, “Name in Stone,” (below) was a little catchier and I can see their appeal. Contrary to the article above, People Magazine says they’re not coming out with an album until October, though. Maybe they’ll release it around Halloween and include some spookier tracts to go along with their theme. People are looking for less commercially produced music but I know I prefer to hear stuff that is neither completely plastic or so rough around the edges that it’s hard to listen to. At least Ryan knows his limitations and isn’t a music poser like Scarlett Johansson.

DEAD MAN’S BONES – “NAME IN STONE” from biz3 publicity on Vimeo.

Here’s Ryan on the set of his new movie, Blue Valentine, in Brooklyn, NY on 5/19/09. The film is out next year and also stars Michelle Williams. Credit: RAM/Fame Pictures