Who are Dogstar? Keanu Reeves’ early ‘90s rock act tease new music and celebrate with photo opportunity

Of all the potential reunions in the music world that have emerged this year, one such rumour that has emerged overnight stands out above them all for people of a certain age - myself included. When news emerged that Dogstar were in the studio, potentially teasing the prospect of new music - the first since 2000’s album Happy Ending - myself and a portion of film fans leapt for joy. 

Why you may ask? Well as it happens, Dogstar are not just another group that was lost to the obscurity that was mid ‘90s radio friendly rock, not at all. Dogstar just so happened to be the musical output of one Keanu Reeves, who played bass for the group since their inception in 1991. While the selling point for Zoo Entertainment, who released the first two works from the group, is the fact that a Hollywood A-Lister was in a band that actively were touring, Keanu’s approach for the band was to be as low-key as possible - it was all about the music, man, not about the man doing the music.

Though Dogstar wasn’t strictly the first band Keanu Reeves was involved in, it was the most serious in terms of the actor’s approach to music. He had a few garage bands in the ‘80s, one of which called Becky that Keanu has gone on record to state helped inform his love of music from a very early age; they self-released a cassette tape with nine tracks, including songs with titles like "My Own Two Hands", "Alien", and "Don't Call Me Babe," and the drummer for Becky, his friend Rob Mailhouse, would later be enlisted to drum for Dogstar in 1991.

Taking their name from Sirius, the the brightest star in the Canis Major constellation, which is often called the "Dog Star," the band started off like every other band does; plying their trade on the live circuit with Los Angeles, the homebase of the group, their main location to play clubs and bars. Record label executives got wind of this group with one of Hollywood’s hottest young actors, and by 1996 had released their first EP, Quattro Formagi, through Zoo Entertainment, who had an impressive roster of alternative acts at that stage including Tool and power-pop artist Matthew Sweet.

But for Keanu, this wasn’t him pivoting away from acting, nor was it him taking up music as a means to promote his own brand, akin to influencers on social media over the last decade. For Keanu, this was just about making music with friends and somewhat of a hobby as opposed to his acting roles. It was a sense of creativity for Reeves that we’ve come to learn has been an important aspect of his life given his recent relationship with artist Alexandra Grant. 

But by the time the band’s debut album, Our Little Visionary, dropped in September 1996, the band were already being derided as just being a celebrity vehicle for Keanu and his “muso mates.” Though commercially Dogstar were successful, earning places in both the Billboard singles and album charts, critically the band were panned. Though the band were credited for the energetic live performances and the on-stage charisma of Keanu Reeves, people had gotten bored of post-grunge by that time as nu-metal was starting to become the “on-trend” music genre that the mainstream embraced.

Which led to one more album from the band, 2000’s Happy Ending and then the band going on hiatus; with Keanu’s acting career taking off again, the actor didn’t feel like he had the time to commit himself both to music and acting. We believe he made the right choice - we got The Matrix franchise out of it, and as it turns out absence makes the heart grow fonder.