WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.759 Imagine having a childhood fear of the supernatural 00:00:02.759 --> 00:00:06.940 so completely paralyzing that you are like actually 00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:09.919 an intensive ongoing therapy just to cope with 00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:12.439 your daily life. Oh, wow. Yeah, that is heavy 00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:16.600 for a kid. Right. Or, uh, imagine living in a 00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:18.760 childhood home that your parents are so utterly 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:21.059 convinced is haunted that they literally pack 00:00:21.059 --> 00:00:23.519 up your entire family, abandon the house, and 00:00:23.519 --> 00:00:26.420 just never look back. That is legitimately terrifying. 00:00:26.539 --> 00:00:28.780 Like, the adults in the room are validating the 00:00:28.780 --> 00:00:31.539 monster under the bed. Exactly. Now, imagine 00:00:31.539 --> 00:00:33.619 you grow up. You meet someone with that exact 00:00:33.619 --> 00:00:36.409 same deep -seated trauma. and you decide the 00:00:36.409 --> 00:00:38.890 only way to heal from it is to form a band. Which 00:00:38.890 --> 00:00:41.609 is an interesting coping mechanism. It gets weirder. 00:00:41.829 --> 00:00:44.450 Oh, and you happen to be A -list Hollywood actor 00:00:44.450 --> 00:00:47.090 Ryan Gosling. I mean, it completely shatters 00:00:47.090 --> 00:00:49.289 the mechanical expectation we usually have when 00:00:49.289 --> 00:00:52.609 a major Hollywood actor decides to dabble in 00:00:52.609 --> 00:00:54.850 a music career. Yeah, you usually expect something 00:00:54.850 --> 00:00:56.890 totally different. Right, because we have been 00:00:56.890 --> 00:00:59.530 conditioned to expect something polished to within 00:00:59.530 --> 00:01:02.799 an inch of its life. You anticipate the top -tier 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:05.799 producers, the flawlessly curated press photos, 00:01:06.439 --> 00:01:10.150 and a very safe focus -grouped sound. The standard 00:01:10.150 --> 00:01:13.250 vanity project. Exactly. It's almost always a 00:01:13.250 --> 00:01:15.930 vanity project designed to be universally palatable. 00:01:16.290 --> 00:01:18.510 Just extending a celebrity's brand without taking 00:01:18.510 --> 00:01:21.530 any real creative risks. OK, let's unpack this 00:01:21.530 --> 00:01:25.430 because to truly understand the late 2000s rock 00:01:25.430 --> 00:01:28.670 duo Dead Man's Bones, you have to understand 00:01:28.670 --> 00:01:31.109 that this isn't a standard celebrity side hustle. 00:01:31.189 --> 00:01:33.349 Not even close. Today we are welcoming you to 00:01:33.349 --> 00:01:35.810 our deep dive where we are looking at a single 00:01:35.810 --> 00:01:38.430 fascinating Wikipedia article detailing the history 00:01:38.430 --> 00:01:40.959 of this incredibly unique band. It is such a 00:01:40.959 --> 00:01:43.439 wild ride. It really is. We are exploring how 00:01:43.439 --> 00:01:45.439 an unlikely pair of friends took their deepest 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:48.239 most visceral childhood fears and channeled them 00:01:48.239 --> 00:01:50.959 into a boundary pushing, rule breaking musical 00:01:50.959 --> 00:01:53.819 experiment that left a massive surprising footprint 00:01:53.819 --> 00:01:57.909 on pop culture. And the foundation of that experiment 00:01:57.909 --> 00:02:01.849 starts way back in 2005. Ryan Gosling, who, by 00:02:01.849 --> 00:02:03.950 the way, actually chose to perform in this musical 00:02:03.950 --> 00:02:06.730 project under the slightly ridiculous alias Baby 00:02:06.730 --> 00:02:09.849 Goose. Wait, Baby Goose, that is amazing. Yeah, 00:02:09.969 --> 00:02:13.189 Baby Goose. So he met Zach Shields. And what 00:02:13.189 --> 00:02:15.330 brings these two together isn't a shared desire 00:02:15.330 --> 00:02:18.111 to become famous rock stars, or even like... 00:02:18.110 --> 00:02:21.569 A mutual love for a specific genre of music? 00:02:21.629 --> 00:02:24.050 No, it's much more niche than that. Very. They 00:02:24.050 --> 00:02:27.469 bonded over a mutual, intense, and highly specific 00:02:27.469 --> 00:02:30.110 obsession with Disneyland's Haunted Mansion ride. 00:02:30.430 --> 00:02:32.270 And if you were listening to this thinking, oh, 00:02:32.289 --> 00:02:34.129 they just like the fun theme park attraction, 00:02:34.650 --> 00:02:36.810 let me stop you right there. It goes so much 00:02:36.810 --> 00:02:39.449 deeper than a casual appreciation for animatronic 00:02:39.449 --> 00:02:41.550 ghosts. Yeah, it wasn't just a hobby. Right. 00:02:41.819 --> 00:02:44.780 Zach Shields' childhood preoccupation with ghosts 00:02:44.780 --> 00:02:47.960 was so severe and so overwhelming that it disrupted 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:51.159 his daily life. The fear was so intense he required 00:02:51.159 --> 00:02:53.699 professional psychological intervention. Which 00:02:53.699 --> 00:02:56.520 is so wild to think about. Think about the psychological 00:02:56.520 --> 00:02:58.419 weight of that for a young child. I mean, a kid 00:02:58.419 --> 00:03:01.300 dressing up as a vampire for Halloween or enjoying 00:03:01.300 --> 00:03:03.580 a scary movie is one thing. Sure, that's normal 00:03:03.580 --> 00:03:06.479 kid stuff. But requiring therapy because you 00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:09.319 were actually paralyzed by the concept of mortality 00:03:09.319 --> 00:03:12.360 and the supernatural is entirely different. When 00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:14.979 you are a child facing that kind of phobia, you 00:03:14.979 --> 00:03:18.400 are completely powerless. You have zero control. 00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:20.780 Exactly. You are at the absolute mercy of the 00:03:20.780 --> 00:03:23.680 dark and of those unseen spaces between the living 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:26.539 and the dead. And Gosling wasn't exactly having 00:03:26.539 --> 00:03:29.860 a standard picket fence childhood either. His 00:03:29.860 --> 00:03:32.419 parents were so terrified by what they believed 00:03:32.419 --> 00:03:34.939 was genuine paranoia. activity in their home 00:03:34.939 --> 00:03:36.919 that they just abandoned it. They just packed 00:03:36.919 --> 00:03:39.280 up and left. Yeah. Imagine what that does to 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:42.080 a child's psyche. The adults in the room, the 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:44.439 people who are supposed to keep you safe, are 00:03:44.439 --> 00:03:47.319 essentially validating your worst fears by packing 00:03:47.319 --> 00:03:49.879 the station wagon and fleeing. It really is like 00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:52.500 discovering two adults who bonded over a mutual 00:03:52.500 --> 00:03:54.800 paralyzing fear of the monster under the bed. 00:03:55.060 --> 00:03:57.360 But instead of laughing it off over a few drinks 00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:00.159 and move it on, they used it as their ultimate 00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:03.740 creative muse. Which brings up a big question. 00:04:04.479 --> 00:04:08.300 How exactly does profound childhood trauma, abandoning 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:11.560 homes and undergoing therapy translate into a 00:04:11.560 --> 00:04:14.439 desire to write supernatural love stories? Because 00:04:14.439 --> 00:04:16.579 that was their ultimate decision here. What's 00:04:16.579 --> 00:04:19.000 fascinating here is the psychological mechanism 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:21.660 of reclamation. Oh, reclamation. I like that. 00:04:21.699 --> 00:04:24.360 Yeah, because as children, Gosling and Shields 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:26.680 were victims of their own imaginations and their 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:28.860 environments. They were fleeing houses and sitting 00:04:28.860 --> 00:04:31.100 in therapist offices just trying to cope with 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:33.899 it all. Right. But as adults, by choosing to 00:04:33.899 --> 00:04:36.139 write love stories about these exact same ghosts, 00:04:36.259 --> 00:04:38.980 monsters, and ghouls, they were actively taking 00:04:38.980 --> 00:04:42.680 control of the narrative. They synthesized those 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:46.439 extreme, isolating experiences into a very unique 00:04:46.439 --> 00:04:49.600 psychological bond. They took the lingering dread 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:52.560 that had haunted them for decades and transformed 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:55.800 it into a shared artistic language. Finding romance 00:04:55.800 --> 00:04:57.980 in the macabre, you know, it allows you to process 00:04:57.980 --> 00:05:00.139 the fear on your own terms. They essentially 00:05:00.139 --> 00:05:01.740 decided that they weren't going to run from the 00:05:01.740 --> 00:05:04.220 haunted house anymore. Yeah, they moved in. Exactly. 00:05:04.259 --> 00:05:06.379 Instead, they were going to move back in, decorate 00:05:06.379 --> 00:05:08.959 the parlor, and write the soundtrack for it. 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:11.939 By romanticizing the very things that terrified 00:05:11.939 --> 00:05:14.740 them, they stripped those fears of their power. 00:05:14.889 --> 00:05:17.110 But deciding to make a deeply personal album 00:05:17.110 --> 00:05:20.949 about monsters, built entirely on raw, unresolved 00:05:20.949 --> 00:05:23.930 childhood emotions, it kind of dictates your 00:05:23.930 --> 00:05:27.410 next move. You can't exactly walk into a pristine, 00:05:27.790 --> 00:05:30.009 multi -million dollar Hollywood recording studio 00:05:30.009 --> 00:05:33.310 and start tracking flawlessly auto -tuned vocals. 00:05:33.470 --> 00:05:36.029 Oh, absolutely not. A sterile, hyper -controlled 00:05:36.029 --> 00:05:38.449 environment would instantly kill the vulnerability 00:05:38.449 --> 00:05:40.649 they needed to capture. It would sound too fake. 00:05:40.889 --> 00:05:44.060 Right. If the subject matter is raw, unpolished 00:05:44.060 --> 00:05:46.220 and a little unsettling, the methodology has 00:05:46.220 --> 00:05:49.100 to mirror that perfectly. So to achieve that, 00:05:49.180 --> 00:05:51.139 they essentially shattered the established rules 00:05:51.139 --> 00:05:52.779 of music production when they went to record 00:05:52.779 --> 00:05:55.420 their self -titled debut album. Which was released 00:05:55.420 --> 00:05:58.920 in October 2009 through NTI Records, right? Yes, 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:01.139 produced by Tim Anderson. And the parameters 00:06:01.139 --> 00:06:03.620 they set for themselves alongside Anderson are 00:06:03.620 --> 00:06:07.180 completely wild. First, they instituted a strict 00:06:07.180 --> 00:06:10.689 no -click tracks rule. Which is huge. It is. 00:06:10.769 --> 00:06:13.269 And for anyone who hasn't spent time in a modern 00:06:13.269 --> 00:06:16.290 recording studio, a click track is essentially 00:06:16.290 --> 00:06:19.149 a digital metronome playing continuously in the 00:06:19.149 --> 00:06:21.930 musician's headphones. Beep, beep, beep. Exactly. 00:06:22.089 --> 00:06:24.649 It keeps every single drum hit and guitar strum 00:06:24.649 --> 00:06:28.149 in perfect, flawless grid -like time. And refusing 00:06:28.149 --> 00:06:30.850 to use one strips away the guarantee of precision. 00:06:31.350 --> 00:06:34.310 But more importantly, it strips away the mechanical 00:06:34.310 --> 00:06:36.930 stiffness that a lot of modern pop music suffers 00:06:36.930 --> 00:06:40.269 from. It lets the song breathe. Yes. Without 00:06:40.269 --> 00:06:42.129 a click track, the music is forced to breathe. 00:06:42.310 --> 00:06:44.670 The tempo organically speeds up with excitement 00:06:44.670 --> 00:06:47.730 during a chaotic chorus, or it bogs down and 00:06:47.730 --> 00:06:50.930 slows with melancholy during a quiet verse. It 00:06:50.930 --> 00:06:53.370 mimics a human heartbeat. Which is so fitting 00:06:53.370 --> 00:06:55.689 for this project. But they didn't stop at the 00:06:55.689 --> 00:06:57.970 tempo either. They also capped themselves at 00:06:57.970 --> 00:07:00.350 a maximum of three takes per song. Or I'll go 00:07:00.350 --> 00:07:02.790 pressure. Right. Three chances to get it right. 00:07:03.069 --> 00:07:05.089 And whatever happens on that third try is what 00:07:05.089 --> 00:07:07.170 goes on the record. And then, here... Here's 00:07:07.170 --> 00:07:09.129 where it gets really interesting. Oh, yeah, the 00:07:09.129 --> 00:07:11.069 instruments. They made the decision to play all 00:07:11.069 --> 00:07:13.269 the instruments themselves, even the instruments 00:07:13.269 --> 00:07:14.949 they had never touched before in their entire 00:07:14.949 --> 00:07:17.930 lives. Which sounds insane. It does. Now, wait, 00:07:17.930 --> 00:07:20.750 I have to push back on this a little bit. Insisting 00:07:20.750 --> 00:07:23.110 on playing instruments you've never touched before, 00:07:23.750 --> 00:07:26.790 refusing to keep perfect time, and capping the 00:07:26.790 --> 00:07:30.050 recording at three takes, isn't that just a recipe 00:07:30.050 --> 00:07:34.050 for an unlistenable amateurish disaster? That 00:07:34.050 --> 00:07:36.550 is what you would think, yeah. I mean, if I... 00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:39.800 pick up a cello, having never played one, it's 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:41.860 not going to sound like a haunting gothic melody. 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:43.480 It's going to sound like I'm injuring a small 00:07:43.480 --> 00:07:46.600 animal. How does that actually serve the music? 00:07:46.839 --> 00:07:48.879 Well, it's a completely valid question, and it 00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:51.060 goes against every instinct of the music industry. 00:07:51.579 --> 00:07:54.259 But their artistic philosophy was built on the 00:07:54.259 --> 00:07:56.879 idea that letting those glaring imperfections 00:07:56.879 --> 00:07:59.360 remain in the recording actually highlights the 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:01.600 emotional core of the music. So the mistakes 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:04.319 are a feature, not a bug. Precisely. When you 00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:05.939 attempt to play an instrument you've never played 00:08:05.939 --> 00:08:08.779 before, say like a tack piano or an upright bass, 00:08:09.300 --> 00:08:11.439 you lack the muscle memory and the technical 00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:14.000 proficiency to fall back on. You can't go on 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:16.699 autopilot. No, you can't hide behind skill at 00:08:16.699 --> 00:08:20.019 all. You can only rely on raw emotion and instinct. 00:08:20.259 --> 00:08:22.839 So the lack of muscle memory actually forces 00:08:22.839 --> 00:08:25.389 them to be hyper -present in the moment. The 00:08:25.389 --> 00:08:27.949 imperfection isn't a mistake, it's the entire 00:08:27.949 --> 00:08:30.550 point of the exercise. You are quite literally 00:08:30.550 --> 00:08:32.970 a beginner fumbling in the dark to find the right 00:08:32.970 --> 00:08:35.529 note. And what could possibly be more fitting 00:08:35.529 --> 00:08:38.470 for an album about childhood fears than the sonic 00:08:38.470 --> 00:08:40.450 equivalent of someone fumbling in the dark? That 00:08:40.450 --> 00:08:42.639 is a great way to put it. Avoiding a polished 00:08:42.639 --> 00:08:46.220 artificial sound creates a raw, vulnerable authenticity. 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:49.360 The audible squeak of fingers sliding down a 00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:52.080 guitar string, an offbeat drum hit, a slightly 00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:55.059 missed, dissonant note on a piano. These are 00:08:55.059 --> 00:08:57.259 proof of life. They are proof of human frailty. 00:08:57.399 --> 00:08:59.159 And if you've ever tried to learn an instrument, 00:08:59.620 --> 00:09:01.919 you know how terrible and chaotic those first 00:09:01.919 --> 00:09:05.059 few days sound. Imagine committing that exact 00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:08.039 vulnerable phase to a professional record being 00:09:08.039 --> 00:09:09.899 distributed globally. It takes a lot of guts. 00:09:10.139 --> 00:09:12.460 It really does. And to amplify that incredible 00:09:12.460 --> 00:09:14.639 vulnerability, they didn't just sing the soaring 00:09:14.639 --> 00:09:17.299 choruses themselves. The core collaboration on 00:09:17.299 --> 00:09:20.279 this entire record was with the Silver Lake Conservatory 00:09:20.279 --> 00:09:22.720 Children's Choir. Bringing in a choir of local 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:25.299 kids completely elevated the project. It took 00:09:25.299 --> 00:09:27.759 it from an indie rock experiment into something 00:09:27.759 --> 00:09:30.460 much, much more profound. And the Silver Lake 00:09:30.460 --> 00:09:33.250 Conservatory was actually founded by Flea. Right? 00:09:33.570 --> 00:09:35.669 The legendary bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 00:09:35.809 --> 00:09:38.230 Yeah, he founded it to provide music education. 00:09:39.230 --> 00:09:42.090 And Gosling and Shields utilized these pure, 00:09:42.309 --> 00:09:45.250 unadulterated voices to directly contrast with 00:09:45.250 --> 00:09:48.210 their own rough, untrained instrumentation. Looking 00:09:48.210 --> 00:09:51.330 at the track titles, songs like, My Body's a 00:09:51.330 --> 00:09:53.809 Zombie for You, Werewolf Heart, and Flowers Grow 00:09:53.809 --> 00:09:57.149 Out of My Grave. This is pure gothic folk territory. 00:09:57.190 --> 00:09:59.570 Oh, absolutely. And by gothic folk, we're talking 00:09:59.570 --> 00:10:02.950 about a genre that relies on heavy, eerie atmospheres. 00:10:03.350 --> 00:10:05.649 It sounds like clattering bones, stomping feet, 00:10:05.850 --> 00:10:08.549 haunting sea shanties, and dark 19th century 00:10:08.549 --> 00:10:11.429 parlor music. It's acoustic but aggressive. Right. 00:10:11.649 --> 00:10:13.610 Then right in the middle of that darkness you 00:10:13.610 --> 00:10:16.009 add a chorus of children singing these macabre 00:10:16.009 --> 00:10:18.870 lyrics. It creates a magnificent cognitive dissonance. 00:10:19.289 --> 00:10:22.090 Combining slightly chaotic amateur instrumentation 00:10:22.090 --> 00:10:24.929 with the bright enthusiastic voices of a children's 00:10:24.929 --> 00:10:27.730 choir perfectly mirrors the core theme of the 00:10:27.730 --> 00:10:31.399 band. It's spooky but sweet. Yes, it is the ultimate 00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:34.399 blend of childlike innocence and haunting subject 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:37.779 matter. Hearing a child sing passionately about 00:10:37.779 --> 00:10:40.740 flowers growing out of a grave is simultaneously 00:10:40.740 --> 00:10:44.120 beautiful and deeply unsettling. But capturing 00:10:44.120 --> 00:10:46.559 that lightning in a bottle vulnerability in a 00:10:46.559 --> 00:10:49.559 studio creates a massive hurdle. That second 00:10:49.559 --> 00:10:51.580 the album is finished though. Head the logistics. 00:10:51.779 --> 00:10:54.120 Yeah, you can't just hire a standard five keys 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:56.940 backing band of seasoned session musicians to 00:10:56.940 --> 00:10:59.580 replicate a 30 piece local children's choir on 00:10:59.580 --> 00:11:02.860 the road. The commitment to raw, unpredictable 00:11:02.860 --> 00:11:05.419 authenticity dictated exactly how they had to 00:11:05.419 --> 00:11:07.759 share this music with the world. The live translation 00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:09.639 of this album required a completely different, 00:11:09.820 --> 00:11:11.899 almost community theater approach to touring. 00:11:12.139 --> 00:11:14.159 Community theater is the perfect vibe. When they 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:16.120 finally took this show on the road for a fall 00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:19.299 and Halloween U .S. tour in 2009, they fully 00:11:19.299 --> 00:11:21.620 embraced the logistical nightmare of their own 00:11:21.620 --> 00:11:24.600 creation. At every single stop on the tour, they 00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:26.879 didn't just bring a standard opening act in a 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:29.779 tour van. They incorporated a local children's 00:11:29.779 --> 00:11:32.460 choir from that specific city, similar to the 00:11:32.460 --> 00:11:34.360 Sova Lake Conservatory kids they recorded with 00:11:34.360 --> 00:11:37.090 in Los Angeles. Think about the daily logistics 00:11:37.090 --> 00:11:40.429 of that tour. Arriving in a new city every morning, 00:11:40.950 --> 00:11:43.710 locating a local choir, rehearsing with a completely 00:11:43.710 --> 00:11:46.049 new group of children in a single afternoon. 00:11:46.429 --> 00:11:48.090 And teaching them these complex arrangements. 00:11:48.250 --> 00:11:50.830 Right, teaching them these gothic folk vocal 00:11:50.830 --> 00:11:53.210 arrangements on the fly before the theater doors 00:11:53.210 --> 00:11:56.230 open that evening. It guarantees that no two 00:11:56.230 --> 00:11:59.490 shows will ever sound exactly the same. The energy 00:11:59.490 --> 00:12:02.830 on stage is inherently nervous. electric, and 00:12:02.830 --> 00:12:05.350 on the verge of falling apart at any second. 00:12:06.009 --> 00:12:08.470 And they didn't stop at the local choir. They 00:12:08.470 --> 00:12:11.250 also hosted a local talent show at every single 00:12:11.250 --> 00:12:13.610 tour stop instead of having a traditional opener. 00:12:14.230 --> 00:12:17.389 So what does this all mean? It means chaos. Picture 00:12:17.389 --> 00:12:19.889 being in the audience for this. You might see 00:12:19.889 --> 00:12:22.389 a local amateur magician pulling fake bats out 00:12:22.389 --> 00:12:25.070 of a hat, or a tap dancer in a cheap skeleton 00:12:25.070 --> 00:12:27.269 costume, followed immediately by a Hollywood 00:12:27.269 --> 00:12:29.549 A -lister and his best friend playing out of 00:12:29.549 --> 00:12:32.789 tune cellos while 30 local kids sing about zombies. 00:12:33.049 --> 00:12:34.909 It's like a traveling circus collided with a 00:12:34.909 --> 00:12:37.549 middle school recital in a graveyard. It completely 00:12:37.549 --> 00:12:39.629 broke down the barrier between the performer 00:12:39.629 --> 00:12:42.409 and the audience. By bringing local kids and 00:12:42.409 --> 00:12:45.779 eccentric local talent onto the stage, Dead Man's 00:12:45.779 --> 00:12:48.539 Bones basically invited the audience into their 00:12:48.539 --> 00:12:51.019 haunted house. You aren't just watching a show. 00:12:51.480 --> 00:12:53.139 No, it wasn't a concert where you just stand 00:12:53.139 --> 00:12:55.399 there with a drink and passively watch a celebrity 00:12:55.399 --> 00:12:58.519 perform. It was a communal ritual. They were 00:12:58.519 --> 00:13:01.480 actively celebrating the weird, the spooky, and 00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:03.940 the amateurish in the best possible sense of 00:13:03.940 --> 00:13:06.840 the word. And that level of sincerity leaves 00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:10.049 a mark. The legacy of this album is just wild 00:13:10.049 --> 00:13:12.950 to trace it rippled out across so many different 00:13:12.950 --> 00:13:17.129 media over the years like in 2013 their song 00:13:17.129 --> 00:13:19.789 lose your soul was featured in the closing credits 00:13:19.789 --> 00:13:22.669 of the French film age of panic a great film 00:13:22.669 --> 00:13:26.190 Yeah, and that same year the track in the room 00:13:26.190 --> 00:13:27.929 where you sleep landed in the soundtrack for 00:13:27.929 --> 00:13:30.330 the mass of Hollywood horror hit the conjuring 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:32.600 And the cinematic placement in The Conjuring 00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:36.179 makes perfect thematic sense. That film is entirely 00:13:36.179 --> 00:13:38.960 about a family dealing with an intense, terrifying, 00:13:39.059 --> 00:13:41.960 supernatural threat invading their home, which 00:13:41.960 --> 00:13:44.639 essentially mirrors the very origins of Gosling's 00:13:44.639 --> 00:13:47.519 own childhood fears and his family abandoning 00:13:47.519 --> 00:13:50.419 their house. The music sits the dread perfectly. 00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:52.940 But the musical ripple effect gets even stranger 00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:55.840 than movie soundtracks. They influence the punk 00:13:55.840 --> 00:13:58.440 band Our Time Down Here. Which makes sense. Punk 00:13:58.440 --> 00:14:01.399 is raw. Right. But the most shocking connection 00:14:01.399 --> 00:14:04.039 is how Ryan Gosling's use of Achievement's choir 00:14:04.039 --> 00:14:07.120 directly inspired the black and death metal band 00:14:07.120 --> 00:14:10.059 Behemoth. That is just incredible. Behemoth actually 00:14:10.059 --> 00:14:13.159 used a kid's choir on their 2018 album I Loved 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:15.600 You at Your Darkest, specifically citing Dead 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:18.330 Man's Bones as the catalyst for the idea. Having 00:14:18.330 --> 00:14:21.909 to pause here, how on earth does a niche indie 00:14:21.909 --> 00:14:24.509 gothic folk project manage to directly inspire 00:14:24.509 --> 00:14:27.309 extreme blackened death metal? It seems like 00:14:27.309 --> 00:14:29.389 a stretch, right? It's like using a watercolor 00:14:29.389 --> 00:14:31.909 brush to paint a heavy metal album cover. The 00:14:31.909 --> 00:14:34.309 tools fundamentally contradict the expected output. 00:14:34.529 --> 00:14:36.710 If we connect this to the bigger picture, it 00:14:36.710 --> 00:14:39.750 proves that genuine, unpretentious art transcends 00:14:39.750 --> 00:14:42.620 its genre. Okay, unpack that a bit. Well... Black 00:14:42.620 --> 00:14:45.139 and death metal is a genre defined by guttural 00:14:45.139 --> 00:14:48.620 vocals, aggressive blast beat drumming, and a 00:14:48.620 --> 00:14:51.620 deliberately oppressive heavy atmosphere. It 00:14:51.620 --> 00:14:54.500 thrives on darkness and evoking a visceral reaction 00:14:54.500 --> 00:14:56.799 from the listener. So how does a choir of innocent 00:14:56.799 --> 00:14:59.340 kids fit into blast beat drumming and heavy guitars? 00:14:59.690 --> 00:15:02.690 That's exactly the brilliance Behemoth recognized. 00:15:03.190 --> 00:15:05.370 When they heard what Dead Man's Bones did, they 00:15:05.370 --> 00:15:07.429 didn't hear a Hollywood actor playing quirky 00:15:07.429 --> 00:15:10.909 indie rock. They heard the terrifying primal 00:15:10.909 --> 00:15:13.210 contrast between innocence and mortality. The 00:15:13.210 --> 00:15:16.389 juxtaposition. Yes. Musically, the pure high 00:15:16.389 --> 00:15:19.049 register unison singing of a children's choir 00:15:19.049 --> 00:15:21.830 slices right through the dense muddy distorted 00:15:21.830 --> 00:15:25.529 guitars of death metal. It creates a sonic contrast 00:15:25.529 --> 00:15:28.009 that is deeply unsettling. The innocence of the 00:15:28.009 --> 00:15:30.200 choir actually makes the heavy metal sound darker 00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:32.720 and more sinister than if they just used a traditional 00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:35.440 heavy metal vocalist. Precisely. By tapping into 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:38.820 primal themes, fear, the loss of innocence, mortality 00:15:38.820 --> 00:15:41.779 itself, and executing them with absolute unflinching 00:15:41.779 --> 00:15:44.600 sincerity, Gosling and Shields created a sonic 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:46.740 aesthetic that is universally potent. It just 00:15:46.740 --> 00:15:49.799 works everywhere. It does. That sincerity resonates 00:15:49.799 --> 00:15:52.899 just as strongly in the backdrop of a blockbuster 00:15:52.899 --> 00:15:55.740 Hollywood horror film as it does in the most 00:15:55.740 --> 00:15:59.750 abrasive, extreme subgenres of heavy metal. Art 00:15:59.750 --> 00:16:01.990 that tells the truth about human fear will always 00:16:01.990 --> 00:16:04.049 find its audience, regardless of the packaging 00:16:04.049 --> 00:16:06.889 or the genre. That is just incredible. It really 00:16:06.889 --> 00:16:09.389 brings us full circle. Two guys took the very 00:16:09.389 --> 00:16:11.590 things that terrified them the most as children, 00:16:12.009 --> 00:16:14.929 the ghosts that put one in therapy and forced 00:16:14.929 --> 00:16:17.669 the other's family to literally flee their home. 00:16:17.710 --> 00:16:20.379 And they owned it. They took that terror, threw 00:16:20.379 --> 00:16:22.659 out every single rule of musical perfection, 00:16:23.259 --> 00:16:25.879 refused to use a click track, fumbled through 00:16:25.879 --> 00:16:28.200 instruments they didn't know how to play, and 00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:31.690 created a deeply strange gothic folk choir album. 00:16:31.950 --> 00:16:34.970 And that wildly imperfect album went on to influence 00:16:34.970 --> 00:16:38.090 both mainstream Hollywood horror and extreme 00:16:38.090 --> 00:16:40.129 black and death metal. Which nobody could have 00:16:40.129 --> 00:16:42.309 predicted. Definitely not. It's a testament to 00:16:42.309 --> 00:16:44.490 the power of embracing your flaws and leaning 00:16:44.490 --> 00:16:46.830 into the things that scare you, rather than trying 00:16:46.830 --> 00:16:48.990 to polish them away or hide them behind studio 00:16:48.990 --> 00:16:51.669 magic. They bypass the glossy Hollywood machine 00:16:51.669 --> 00:16:54.149 entirely, but just being raw and vulnerable. 00:16:54.559 --> 00:16:57.200 And in doing so, they achieve something that 00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:00.059 money, PR teams, and top -tier producers can 00:17:00.059 --> 00:17:02.860 never actually buy, which is genuine cultural 00:17:02.860 --> 00:17:06.170 permanence. Which leaves us with something really 00:17:06.170 --> 00:17:08.589 fascinating for you to mull over as you go about 00:17:08.589 --> 00:17:11.130 the rest of your day Yeah, we started this whole 00:17:11.130 --> 00:17:14.109 deep dive talking about the expectation of precision 00:17:14.109 --> 00:17:17.549 The polished Hollywood image and how this project 00:17:17.549 --> 00:17:20.109 was the exact opposite. It was a plunge into 00:17:20.109 --> 00:17:24.049 the muddy chaotic and terrifying waters of childhood 00:17:24.049 --> 00:17:26.740 fear So think about this. If you were to take 00:17:26.740 --> 00:17:29.539 your own deepest, most irrational childhood fear 00:17:29.539 --> 00:17:32.039 and completely strip away all the adult pressure 00:17:32.039 --> 00:17:35.319 to be perfect or professional, what kind of wild, 00:17:35.500 --> 00:17:37.859 raw and impactful art could you create? The things 00:17:37.859 --> 00:17:40.299 that haunt us often hold the most immense creative 00:17:40.299 --> 00:17:42.559 potential. You know, if we just stop trying to 00:17:42.559 --> 00:17:44.779 control them and let them speak. Such a great 00:17:44.779 --> 00:17:46.519 thought to end on. Thank you for joining us on 00:17:46.519 --> 00:17:48.259 this deep dive. We'll see you next time.