The bands that made Keanu Reeves fall in love with music: “I always listened to the basslines”
Keanu Reeves has a reputation for being a lovely guy, as we all know, but probably the best thing about him, aside from how many different bad guys he can shoot in the face in endlessly inventive ways as John Wick, has to be his deep passion for music.
Well, that and the fact his mum is from Essex and brought him up watching The Two Ronnies.
Reeves was doing it right back in the day too; he vividly remembers the first time he got the instrument he would fall in love with, telling Ultimate Guitar: “I went to the Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard when I was 22 years old, and I got an Ibanez white bass with a rosewood neck and I took it home. I had no idea [how to play], but I wanted to learn how to play bass.”
He picked it up, though, and played over the next ten years before he became a founding member of Dogstar, which formed in Los Angeles as long ago as 1994; the band toured a year later and opened up for the likes of David Bowie before releasing a debut album named Our Little Visionary in 1996.
Dogstar played on and off for the next few years and put out a second album in 1999 before other commitments – like Reeves being a bona fide A-list movie star – got in the way, and the group separated in 2002.
But the pull of live music didn’t last and twenty years on they reformed to play a full tour and release a third album, Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees in 2023. Reeves, meanwhile, was riding high on a career resurgence sparked by the success of the first John Wick film in 2014.
Something of a surprise hit, the film has sparked a global franchise that has grossed over $1billion in revenue across four movies and this year saw a spin-off, Ballerina starring Ana de Armas. A fifth John Wick movie, which will again feature Reeves in the lead role, has been confirmed by Lionsgate to be in development.
Despite his huge acting success, music has always been an integral part of Reeves’ life, however, and his getting the band back together in 2023 was no surprise. He revealed: “I grew up in a household of music. My mom, at the time, was a costume designer for Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris. She had a friendship with producers Brian Ahern and Bob Ezrin. I just remember playing her LPs… Boz Scaggs, Randy Newman, and all of the ’70s records.”
Interestingly enough, his bass playing also indirectly led to the naming of another one of Los Angeles’ biggest bands. Weezer, then unnamed, were due to support Dogstar at a small venue but were unnerved at the prospect of sharing a stage with Reeves, who was already a Hollywood megastar. They decided they had to have an established name before the gig took place and singer Rivers Cuomo used Weezer, his Dad’s pet name for him when he was young, removing the offending ‘h’ before the concert took place. They’re now a band who have sold some 35million albums worldwide.
Reeves, meanwhile, who is half English, certainly concentrated on tunes from across the pond when growing up, adding: “I had a record player pretty young. So of course, I listened to The Beatles Revolver and Abbey Road. I always listened to the basslines. I had a girlfriend at the time, who had kind of changed my life musically. So she introduced me to Joy Division and I’d heard the Ramones. But it was (really) Joy Division and New Order…”
The actor is currently in production on Constantine 2, a sequel to the 2005 supernatural superhero film that fared much better with audiences than critics. He’ll also be seen in Seth Rogen’s new comedy Good Fortune later this year.
