Keanu Reeves (John Wick, The Matrix) played a mean bass alongside his Dogstar bandmates Bret Domrose (guitar and vocals) and Rob Mailhouse (drums) after more than two decades for the second day of this year’s BottleRock Napa Valley festival.
The band had previously confirmed a revival last summer, and during a recent interview with Billboard Reeves admitted how long he’d been hoping to get Dogstar back together:
“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.’”
Dogstar (originally called Small Fecal Matter, and also BFS (Big Fucking Shit, or Big Fucking Sound)) was born out of a Reeves and Mailhouse meeting each other in a supermarket in 1991. Mailhouse was wearing a Detroit Red Wings hockey sweater and Reeves asked if Mailhouse needed a goalie. They formed an instant friendship and soon started began jamming together with Gregg Miller joining as the band’s original lead guitarist and vocalist in 1992. Bret Domrose joined the band in 1994 as a guitarist and vocalist and ended up becoming the lead vocalist when Miller decided to leave the band in 1995.
Beside the festival performance, Dogstar is working on a third studio album as they have more then enough material now after having logged numerous eight-hour rehearsal days together at the beginning of the pandemic.
You can enjoy Dogstar’s return to the live circuit in the video below.
