Hollywood superstar Keanu Reeves played in public for the alternative rock band, Dogstar, for the first time in two decades on 27 May. Performing at the 2023 BottleRock Napa Valley festival in California, he played his trademark bass and was an absolute hit, as per his faithful fan following.
Dogstar was co-founded by the John Wick star in 1991, and he was the band’s bassist and backup vocalist. In a recent interview with Billboard, he revealed his reason for reuniting with band members guitarist/vocalist Bret Domrose and drummer Rob Mailhouse.
He said, “I missed playing together, I missed writing together, I missed doing shows together. It’s something I’ve always missed.”
Dogstar and Keanu Reeves: All you need to know
About the trio’s live performance
Reeves, Domrose and Mailhouse performed live for the first time after they shared the stage at a tour in Japan in October 2002. They brought back their old classics from their previously released albums, Our Little Visionary and Happy Ending, and added some new numbers to the mix from their untitled new album in California.
The band’s Instagram account was created in July 2022 with a picture of the trio back in the nineties. The caption with the post read, “We are back’.
Ever since, the account has been regularly updated with images and videos of the band members jamming along with their producer Dave Trumfio.
Dogstar: The band’s brief history
Reeves met Mailhouse at a supermarket and hit it off. They came together for a band with a rather provocative name, BFS (Big F***ing Sound), which was later changed to Dogstar. Another member, Gregg Miller, joined them after a year, and the trio’s first live performance was at the Milwaukee Metal Fest in 1992. Miller, however, left the band in 1995, and Domrose became the lead vocalist for the band.
One of the reasons that the band got defunct was because of Reeves’ active career in films and because of a tragedy in his personal life in 1999. However, with the pandemic, the trio got an opportunity to get together and jam at Mailhouse’s residence. That is when they found their sound back.
Hero and featured image: Courtesy Dogstar/Instagram
After completing her PG in New Media from the Asian College of Journalism, Preeti has worked in a daily and a magazine before finding her calling in digital journalism. A lover of single malts and an avid pop culture junkie, you can catch her at the movies on weekends or binge-watching the latest shows on OTT when she is not busy preparing her toddler for his Hogwarts letter.
