Video Premiere: Dead Man's Bones' Haunting "Dead Hearts"

Dead Man's Bones' self-titled debut album is out today, and Rolling Stone is pleased to premiere the band's mesmerizing new video for "Dead Hearts." The duo, featuring actor Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields, directed the short film themselves, with a huge assist by production designer Jed Hathaway, who works on the stop-motion Adult Swim show Robot Chicken. While the tense, haunting "Dead Hearts" is slower and more deliberate than some of the album's tracks, the song perfectly soundtracks the striking visuals and sets the tone for the duo's frequent nods to old horror films on the album.

See more actors with rock-star chops.

The star of the video is "Machine With Wishbone," a moving sculpture created by artist Arthur Ganson (the band became fans after watching videos of his work while recording their album and reached out to ask if they could use one of his works). The clip tracks the Wishbone's Sisyphean journey as it wanders past burning barns and eerie graveyards. "Dead Hearts" also shares an aesthetic with the famed stop-motion short films by the Brothers Quay, as well as a hint of Tool videos from the early '90s.

Rolling Stone previously debuted the band's "In the Room Where You Sleep," a ghoulish blend of psychedelic-era pop that appropriately fused elements of the Zombies and the Misfits.

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Song Stories

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry | 1984

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.

More Song Stories entries »

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