Credit: Alamy/Far Out

Keanu Reeves is listening to Alvvays, Daughter, and jazz music

Mon 6 March 2023 14:30, UK

Reddit AMAs (Ask Me Anything) are fascinating looks into the way famous people perceive themselves on the internet. The questions they answer and the types of queries they gravitate toward reveal a little piece of their character behind the well-curated public persona. But what happens when you see that a beloved and humanistic celebrity is doing an AMA? Well, you can bet that there will be a lot of wholesomeness to spread around, and that’s exactly what happened when Keanu Reeves logged on to Reddit this past week.

In order to promote the upcoming fourth film in the John Wick franchise, Reeves took to Reddit for his own AMA. At one point, Reeves was asked about his once-fruitful side gig as a musician. In 1991, at the height of the alternative rock boom, Reeves formed the band Dogstar. Picking up the bass guitar, Reeves recorded two albums with Dogstar and toured around America before the group disbanded in 2002. Other than a brief stint performing with former bandmate Rob Mailhouse in the band Becky, Reeves has yet to return to his music career.

“I was playing with Becky for about a year, but they want to get record deals and go on tour, and I can’t do that, so I bowed out,” Reeves said at the time. Not unlike the guys in Fugazi, Mailhouse claims that the former members of Dogstar are still friends and even rehearsed for a bit back in 2015, but it doesn’t appear as though Reeves has any interest in restarting his budding career as a professional rock bassist.

But it never hurts to ask. During his AMA, Reeves got a four-pronged question. “Do you still play bass at all?” a user by the name of theg721 asked. “Is it true that Kim Gordon borrowed your bass for one of Sonic Youth’s videos? And that you and Mike Watt argued beforehand over whose bass she’d play in the video? What bands have you been listening to lately?”

Reeves confirmed that the first two questions were true. Although he didn’t specify in the AMA, Reeves loaned out his cream-coloured Fender Precision Bass for Gordon to play in the video for Sonic Youth’s ‘100%’. However, Reeves denied that he and Minutemen bassist Mike Watt quarrelled over who got to give their bass to Gordon. “Kim Gordon is cool, and so is Mike Watt!” Reeves explained.

He also took the time to list three artists that have been in his personal rotation. “I’ve been listening to Alvvays, Daughter, and Bill Evans trio,” Reeves wrote. The first two acts seem right within Reeves’ alt-rock wheelhouse. Canadian indie pop pioneers Alvvays released their third studio album Blue Rev back in 2022. English indie folk trio Daughter (not to be confused with American noise rockers Daughters) recently returned from a half-decade-long hiatus to share some new singles from their upcoming third studio effort Stereo Mind Game.

The third choice is a little left-field. Bill Evans is a legendary jazz pianist who has worked with everyone – including Miles Davis. Evans’ embrace of modal jazz helped steer Davis’ direction on Kind of Blue, on which Evans performed and even co-wrote the songs ‘Blue in Green’ and ‘Flamenco Sketches’. Evans was best known as the leader of his own trio, which continued the traditions of old-school jazz as rock music began to dominate pop culture throughout the 1950s and ’60s.

Try on a few of Reeves’ personal recommendations down below.