Keanu Reeves reunited with his rock band Dogstar at the 2023 BottleRock Napa Valley festival. The star of The Matrix played bass with the group for the first time in public in more than 20 years.
His bandmate Robert Mailhouse gave Reeves some advice ahead of performing in front of a live crowd.
“He was just super positive. He was like, ‘Listen to the music. Just be present in the song, and it will go from there,’” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Dogstar was formed in 1991 when Reeves and Mailhouse met at a supermarket and started a friendship. Reeves serves as the band’s bassist and backup vocalist while Mailhouse is a drummer and percussionist.
Gregg Miller joined the band a year later as the lead guitarist and vocalist. He would leave the band in 1995. Bret Domrose joined the band in 1994 as a guitarist and vocalist but when Miller left, he took over as lead vocalist.
Reeves recently opened up about reuniting with Dogstar and how much he missed performing with them.
“I missed playing together, I missed writing together, I missed doing shows together. It’s something I’ve always missed,” Reeves told Billboard. “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 is also working on a new album with Reeves adding, “I think all three of us just said, ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, let’s make a record.’”
Watch Dogstar perform in the video posted below.