At the 2023 BottleRock Napa Valley festival, Keanu Reeves, star of the action film John Wick, made a much-anticipated comeback by getting back together with his rock band, Dogstar. Reeves publicly played bass with the band for the first time in more than twenty years at this reunion.
Speaking with San Francisco Chronicle, Reeves told the media how Robert Mailhouse, his bandmate, gave the actor some advice before he took the stage. Mailhouse supporting advised him to “just listen to the music” to get the rhythm of the song.
Keanu Reeves opens up about getting back together with his band Dogstar
Keanu Reeves discussed his feelings about reforming and performing with the indie rock band in an interview with Billboard. The 58-year-old Matrix actor admitted he missed collaborating with the band. He said,
“I missed playing together, I missed writing together, I missed doing shows together. It’s something I’ve always missed. We came to a spot where we weren’t playing anymore, and I missed it … Once we started to play, and it felt good, and really positive and creative, that’s when it was like, ‘Okay, let’s make this happen.’”
Not only is Reeves getting back together with the band, but they have already started working on a new album with all three members.
When was Keanu Reeves’s band Dogstar formed?
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According to Deadline, Keanu Reeves and Robert Mailhouse met at a supermarket and became friends, which led to the formation of Dogstar in 1991. Mailhouse played the drums and percussion, and Reeves provided the bass guitar and supporting vocals.
Gregg Miller joined the group as the lead guitarist and singer the following year but he eventually left in 1995. When Bret Domrose joined the group in 1994, he played the lead guitar. He replaced Miller as Dogstar’s lead vocalist, though, after the latter quit.
Dogstar played at BottleRock for the first time since breaking up in 2002 in October. However, a Dogstar-affiliated official Instagram merely stated “We’re back” in July 2022, after 20 years of inactivity. Since then, the group has posted numerous updates from the studio, including one in which they disclosed that they used guitars originally owned by Elliott Smith to record.
The band’s recent performance at the 2023 BottleRock Napa Valley Festival featured a mix of 12 songs from Dogstar’s two albums — 1996’s Our Little Visionary and 2000’s Happy Ending. The band also performed songs from their in-the-works third album featuring songs such as Glimmer, Flowers, and Breach.
Source : San Francisco Chronicle
