{"id":20855,"date":"2026-06-02T01:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T01:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/02\/why-dogstars-comeback-is-still-comeback-ing-los-angeles-times\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T01:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T01:31:10","slug":"why-dogstars-comeback-is-still-comeback-ing-los-angeles-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/02\/why-dogstars-comeback-is-still-comeback-ing-los-angeles-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Dogstar\u2019s comeback is still comeback-ing – Los Angeles Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here<\/a>.
The members of Dogstar were trying to manage expectations.
Their<\/i> expectations.
Almost exactly three years ago, this Los Angeles-based alt-rock trio ventured up to Napa\u2019s annual BottleRock festival to play its first public gig in more than two decades. Dogstar had built a small but devoted audience in the post-grunge 1990s before splitting up in 2002, not long after the band\u2019s movie-star bassist, Keanu Reeves, red-pilled himself into sci-fi history as Neo in \u201cThe Matrix.\u201d Now the group was reconnecting on a bill that also featured Post Malone and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
\u201cTen minutes before we go on, I look out and it\u2019s empty<\/i>,\u201d singer-guitarist Bret Domrose recalls. \u201cMassive green lawn. I\u2019m like, This sucks, but I get it \u2014 we\u2019re this band no one\u2019s heard from in a while. So I go back with the guys and we do our little huddle.\u201d He laughs. \u201cThen we come out, and it\u2019s packed.\u201d
\u201cAnd people stuck around \u2014 they didn\u2019t leave,\u201d adds drummer Robert Mailhouse. \u201cThat show really set us off on our journey.\u201d
Indeed, Dogstar\u2019s return \u2014 which spawned a 2023 reunion album, \u201cSomewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees,\u201d and a world tour of nearly 100 dates \u2014 went well enough that the comeback has continued: Last week, the band released a second phase-two LP, \u201cAll In Now,\u201d and it\u2019s set to spend the summer on the road in Europe and the United States. Before Dogstar heads overseas, the trio will perform Tuesday night at the Grammy Museum in downtown L.A.
Music<\/a>
The veteran California punk band has a new album, \u2018Born to Kill,\u2019 that follows Ness\u2019 experience with cancer.
\u201cI can only speak for myself, but I think we all feel this way: This is way more fun now than it\u2019s ever been,\u201d Domrose says as Reeves and Mailhouse nod in agreement. The three are gathered over beers on a recent afternoon at Pasadena\u2019s Sid the Cat Auditorium; after our chat, they\u2019re due to rehearse, which these days leads often enough to the beginning of a new song, they say.
Reckons Mailhouse: \u201cWe\u2019re in a groove.\u201d
Dogstar still plays like the sturdy power trio it became in the era of Nirvana<\/a> and Silverchair. But \u201cAll In Now\u201d upgrades the band\u2019s songwriting; the music looks back to the moody yet tuneful post-punk of English bands like Joy Division and the Smiths. \u201cAnd Section 25,\u201d Mailhouse adds, dropping a more obscure name from the scene that developed around Manchester\u2019s influential Factory Records.
Many of the LP\u2019s songs are built on Reeves\u2019 melodic bass lines \u2014 a musical signature that led Domrose to nickname the actor Chordal Reeves \u201cbecause he plays so many chords on the bass,\u201d Domrose says.
\u201cThat\u2019s actually how we started when I met Keanu,\u201d Mailhouse says. \u201cAt first there was no guitar player \u2014 it was just him on bass and me on drums.\u201d
\u201cWe didn\u2019t even know any guitar players,\u201d says Reeves, by far the band\u2019s quietest member despite (or perhaps because of) his years in the Hollywood spotlight.
Who do these guys regard as music\u2019s greatest melodic bass player?
Mailhouse offers Paul McCartney<\/a>, while Reeves points to Peter Hook of Joy Division and New Order. \u201cOne of my favorites is Arion from Third Eye Blind,\u201d Domrose says. \u201cThat first record was undeniable. I didn\u2019t want to like it because that \u2018Doot-doot-doot\u2026<\/i>,\u2019\u201d he sings, mimicking the hook of Third Eye Blind\u2019s once-inescapable \u201cSemi-Charmed Life.\u201d
\u201cAre you kidding me?\u201d Reeves shoots back. \u201cThat\u2019s a great pop song.\u201d
Lyrically, \u201cAll In Now\u201d tends toward the dreamily impressionistic, though one song, \u201cWhat Is,\u201d paints a pretty clear \u2014 and clearly disapproving \u2014 portrait of President Trump.
\u201cIt\u2019s about someone who\u2019s living in their own world and doesn\u2019t see how it\u2019s affecting the rest of the world,\u201d Domrose says. \u201cAn egomaniac, basically.\u201d Why did he want to write about such a character?
\u201cI didn\u2019t want to \u2014 I hate politics,\u201d the singer replies. \u201cBut I was angry when I saw that Zelensky meeting in the White House. I was surprised how angry I was. Well, not surprised \u2014 I have a soul. But the notion of all those people dying, and that\u2019s his take?\u201d (One line in the song goes, \u201cJust one man holds all the cards.\u201d) \u201cPower and money should never be able to wield that kind of effect,\u201d Domrose goes on. \u201cBut they do. That\u2019s where that song came from.\u201d
Dogstar made \u201cAll In Now\u201d at L.A.\u2019s venerable EastWest Studios with the producer Nick Launay, who\u2019s known for his work with the likes of Nick Cave<\/a> and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Launay forbade Mailhouse to use a click track and pushed the band to record live as much as possible; Domrose remembers telling the producer he was ready to go back and overdub his final guitar parts only to have Launay tell him, \u201cWhat do you mean? You\u2019ve already done them.\u201d
Music<\/a>
In addition to the usual country acts, this weekend\u2019s festival will feature Stephan Jenkins and his band\u2019s \u201990s rock hits.
For Reeves, recording in an old-school L.A. studio \u2014 even as technology has made it easy to do it cheaply at home \u2014 was worth the considerable expense. \u201cYou get being together, you get the mixing board, you get the loud headphones, you get your producer there looking at you \u2014 listening<\/i> to you,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not carved up in sections \u2014 you\u2019re sharing an experience.\u201d
You\u2019re also getting history, Domrose points out. \u201cI was like, Tom Petty<\/a> stood right here,\u201d the singer says. \u201cI better make everyone proud \u2014 including the ghosts.\u201d
The result, Mailhouse says, is his favorite of Dogstar\u2019s four albums. Speaking of which: Why aren\u2019t the band\u2019s first two LPs available on streaming?
Domrose says that after decades of various corporate mergers \u2014 \u201cso many absorptions of labels into labels,\u201d as he puts it \u2014 the band and its management can\u2019t figure out who owns the rights to 1996\u2019s \u201cOur Little Visionary\u201d and 2000\u2019s \u201cHappy Ending.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s like a who-built-the-pyramids mystery,\u201d he adds.
Yet with these new songs out in the world, the three musicians don\u2019t seem particularly bummed not to have their old ones in ready circulation.
\u201cI think the break we took was long enough that it\u2019s almost like we\u2019re a new band now,\u201d Domrose says. \u201cKind of feels like this is the first time for Dogstar.\u201d
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Mikael Wood is pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times.
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This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. The members of Dogstar were trying to manage expectations.Their expectations.Almost exactly three years ago, this Los Angeles-based alt-rock trio ventured up to Napa\u2019s annual BottleRock festival to play its first public gig in more than two decades. Dogstar had built a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}