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Topics: Ryan Gosling, Music
Michael Slavin
Topics: Ryan Gosling, Music
Ryan Gosling’s performance at last night’s Oscars of ‘I’m Just Ken’ may be the talk of the town, but for some people it’s led to a revelation about his musical past.
Whilst most know Gosling singing chops as being predominantly in Barbie and La La Land, fans are finding out a hilarious detail from Gosling’s past which show he has more history than you think with music.
The Barbie star was part of a rock duo, where he performed under the alias Baby Goose, and they sang love songs about ghosts and monsters.
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It’s called ‘Dead Man’s Bones’ and it’s amazing.
Gosling, or Baby Goose, started the duo with friend Zach Shields after discovering the pair had a mutual fascination with ghosts.
Gosling’s parents moved house when he was a kid after becoming convinced their home was haunted, and Shields was put into therapy as a child because of his fascination with ghosts.
The pair met when Gosling was dating The Notebook co-star Rachel McAdams, and Shields was dating her sister, and decided to form a band after discovering their mutual fascination.
After Gosling’s ‘I’m Just Ken’ performance, fans have been talking about his old project, and it’s blowing their minds.
One person tweeted saying: “I’ve been listening to Dead Man’s Bones for years and you’re telling me that’s Ryan Gosling.”
Others though see this as the perfect time for him to bring the band back, with one fan Carrier Wittmer tweeting: “ok babe it’s time to bring dead man’s bones back now”.
The band has an amazing story, with Gosling saying in an interview with Rolling Stone about the project that it started with putting on performances for friends in hotel rooms. He said: “We'd go in the shower and we'd use the shower curtain as the stage curtain.”
The band toured their debut album alongside children’s choirs, with the pair performing all the instruments on the album – even ones they didn’t know how to play.
Gosling learned the piano and cello for the album, with Shields learning to play the drums. The DIY vibe doesn’t stop there though, with the pair banning a click track in the recording of the album and refusing to record more than three attempts on any song.
The funniest part of it all is that, unlike many vanity projects, the album is really really good.
Pitchfork gave the album a 7.1 rating, placing it 0.1 higher than their review of Taylor Swift’s Midnights.
In their review, Pitchfork said: “I'm as surprised as you are with Dead Man's Bones. So many ways for it to go wrong, but instead it's a unique, catchy and lovably weird record, with highlights (the electric piano singalong "Pa Pa Power", the Beck-ish "Werewolf Heart") that could hold their own with the best indie singles of the year.”
So there you have it, before Barbie, before La La Land, before Ken, Gosling was Baby Goose, and sang power ballads and rock songs about ghosts and werewolves.