Keanu Reeves’ band Dogstar is back together after 20 years

Keanu Reeves and his band Dogstar have announced that they’re back together after splitting almost 20 years ago in 2002.

The band will be making their first live performance since their split at this year’s BottleRock Napa Valley festival in Napa, California, which takes place this weekend between Friday, May 26, and Sunday, May 28.

“@dogstarband featuring Bret Domrose, Rob Mailhouse, and Keanu Reeves will be performing brand new songs,” the band wrote in a recent Instagram post announcing their festival gig.

“Catch their first major performance in decades on Saturday, May 27th.”

Reeves says Dogstar is a part of his life

The band previously teased their return last July, when the band posted a throwback picture of guitarist and vocalist Bret Domrose, drummer Robert Mailhouse and Reeves from sometime in the 90s.

“We’re back,” they captioned the picture, their first post on Instagram.

Since then, fans have been eagerly waiting for news of new music or live performances. The band, in the meantime, has shared video clips of them rehearsing, and behind-the-scenes pics of them recording a new record at a studio in Silver Lake.

On their long hiatus, Reeves clarifies getting the band back together wasn’t a matter of finding time in his busy acting career for the band.

“It’s something that’s part of my life,” he said of Dogstar in an interview with Billboard, which formed in 1994. “I missed playing together, I missed writing together, I missed doing shows together. It’s something I’ve always missed.”

And it’s something that both Domrose and Mailhouse also 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.’”

A record for Dogstar in the works

At their upcoming live performance at BottleRock, the band will be playing songs from their 1996 album ‘Our Little Visionary’ and 2000’s ‘Happy Ending’. They will also be revealing new tracks they’ve been working on since they announced their reunion.

“I think all three of us just said, ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, let’s make a record,’” Reeves explained.

Domrose added, “We just knew that there was ‘X’ amount of time, and we needed to make the most of it. We just locked on as wanting to make this record, and it happened pretty quickly.”