In the typical life cycle of a rock band, the early years tend to carry the greatest urgency. Then time smooths the edges, and reunions are fueled more by nostalgia than inspiration. Dogstar has somehow landed on an opposite path.
On their new album All In Now, the Los Angeles trio of singer-guitarist Bret Domrose, drummer Robert Mailhouse, and bassist Keanu Reeves has reinvented itself with a taut, post-punk-informed sound built on texture and anxious melody. It’s their second album since reuniting onstage in 2023, and this time the growth feels like a genuine leap. “I think we’re still Dogstar,” Reeves says, “but Dogstar may be a different band.”
The songs are sharper and more confident, shaped by a successful return to touring and the guidance of producer Nick Launay, whose own history stretches back to the original post-punk era.
It’s mid-afternoon at Sid the Cat Auditorium, a new music venue in South Pasadena and a convenient meeting place for the trio to talk about the album. Inside the Mission-style former school building, all three are dressed in black, the guitarist and drummer both clean-shaven. Reeves has his hair cropped short, his black beard threaded with gray.
As they gather around a table in a kitchen just off the stage, Reeves is the quietest of the trio. But when he does speak, he’s the most enthusiastic. He just bought a new bass and he’s anxious to get back to playing. A tour of Europe lies ahead in June and July. “I can’t wait until we can go rehearse tonight,” he says to the others, practically bouncing in his chair. “Let’s go play!”
While touring behind their 2023 reunion album, Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees, the band learned a few lessons that would help shape All In Now. They realized some of the slower, quieter songs weren’t connecting as powerfully at their festival gigs, while a cover of the Ramones classic “I Wanna Be Sedated” dependably ignited the crowd. The same was true for their own “Shallow Easy,” a new song with chiming guitars destined for the next album.
On Power Lines and Palm Trees, the trio wrote and refined their songs at Mailhouse’s home in L.A.’s Silver Lake neighborhood. For All In Now, they gathered at the Nightingale rehearsal studio in nearby Burbank. Domrose brought a white board and colored markers to track their songwriting progress.
Even so, the sessions were allowed to flow in any direction. “We have no preconceived notions of, ‘Oh, we’re going to write some ballads on this one,’ or ‘Are we gonna write some rockers?’” the singer recalls. “We just get in the room and whatever falls out falls out.”
The last album began in essence as an experiment, to see if Dogstar had another chapter in them. A lot of years had passed since their original run in the ’90s. They remained friends in the intervening years, but their lives and careers had moved on: Domrose, a former member of Bay Area punks the Nuns, is a composer for film and TV. Robert Mailhouse is a working actor and musician. And Keanu is, of course, Keanu. “We were excited by the notion of attempting it,” says Domrose. “I don’t think we knew if it was going to work out or not. We just said, ‘Let’s see what happens.’”
The album that emerged, with producer Dave Trumfio (Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Kool Keith), showed Dogstar returning with a fuller, contemporary sound. “That was our welcome back, get to know each other kind of moment,” says Domrose. “We have a certain confidence now that we can do this. We have those fun 100-whatever shows we did. It just gives a boost to a natural direction of what’s next.”
For All In Now, even more crucial was their astute choice of producer in Launay, whose recent career includes notably urgent records by Nick Cave, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Idles, and Amyl and the Sniffers. Mailhouse has a friend in a major rock band who had worked with Launay before and had this advice: “Do whatever he says.”
“During pre-production, he had a huge hand in which songs made the record,” says Domrose. “He really wasn’t the kind of producer that was restructuring so much. He was more like, ‘That song, no. That song, yes.’”
“He’s like a sonic craftsman,” offers Mailhouse. “He’s molding and layering.”
The British producer—now based in Los Angeles—goes back to the early-’80s, producing albums and singles by such key figures as Public Image Ltd., the Slits, Killing Joke, and Gang of Four. Working with modern acts, he still takes a traditional approach, and the result is often an edgier, more vibrant handmade record.
“You see the Grammys and you see the winners and there’s like 15 writers on the song and 10 producers,” says Mailhouse, of many contemporary recording artists. “I’m like, who are those people?”
Dogstar and Launay worked out of EastWest Studios, a classic recording facility on Sunset Boulevard that, under various names, has hosted the Beach Boys, U2, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Frank Sinatra. Their producer seemed at least as excited and committed as Dogstar was. “This place had that kind of room where everything sounded really good—the bass, the drums, and the guitars, the vocals, the microphones,” Mailhouse recalls. “So it was a pretty magical place.”
Their producer was very much at home there. “Nick, man, that guy can work like 10 hours straight without even getting out of his chair,” the drummer adds. “He doesn’t need a break. I was like, ‘Nick, you want something to eat?’ He’s like, ‘Maybe.’”
Domrose says Launay “was so hands on and so into it, and that was very inspirational. It made you want to do everything the best you can do.”
Likewise, each member of the band was usually on hand for most tracking, even if their parts were essentially completed. “There’s definitely a family aspect of this band,” says Domrose. “It’s like family comes to the dinner table together and eats together and records together. We never set it up that way, but that’s kind of the vibe.”
They completed 15 songs, then chose the final dozen for the album. All In Now opens with Reeves’ rolling bassline on “Math,” as Domrose sings of romantic temptation: “Where I sleep might be a mystery / Are you the future or are you history?” (Mailhouse likens the song to Squeeze’s 1981 hit “Tempted,” and its vocal hook: “There’s no other / Tempted by the fruit of another.”) Underneath the words, the song’s brooding rock sound sets the stage for an album that often leans toward post-punk.
A few years ago, Reeves was a guest on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” when he was asked what he would choose as the only song he could listen to for the rest of his life. His answer was “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division. That kind of gothic punk bass melody is often on his mind as he’s working with Dogstar, he says. “It’s in my body,” Reeves says. “I didn’t start playing bass until I was 22. Self-taught, if you couldn’t tell. That melodic kind of sparse melody—I love melody.”
Several basslines created by Reeves became the foundational riffs for some of the most dynamic tracks. Among those is the album’s rocking title song. “When we’re on tour doing soundcheck,” says Mailhouse, “[Reeves] gets out early and plugs in and I’m always sneaking up with my phone with a record button: ‘I got another one!’ I have so many, I have to mark them on my phone, like, ‘Cleveland riff 8.’ They’re like gems for a song.”
“I feel like we’re a storytelling band,” says Reeves. “Musically, I think each song has its own story. I feel like we’re not a band where every song sounds the same.”
Their ’90s back catalog is missing from streaming services, and the records have been out of print on vinyl and CD for years. That wasn’t always the case, but by the time Dogstar decided to reconvene, it was unclear who owned the rights to their first two albums and an EP. “So we were like, you know what, it’s such a gap [of time], let’s just start over again,” says Mailhouse.
Some of the old songs are on the Dogstar YouTube page, and longtime fans have also posted their favorites. Even so, the band rarely plays anything from that period now. They might pull one out occasionally at a soundcheck or special event, but the truth is that the old songs have the sound of a different time, and no longer represent the band as it is in 2026. Reeves compares them to putting on clothes from an earlier era, and Mailhouse jokes, “You’re really going to put those bell bottoms on?”
Touring behind the release of Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees, the reunited band played all new songs and some covers. “The response that we got was, for me, a little more than I expected. It was like a warm welcome,” says the singer. “We’ve been away. Who knew that anyone’s gonna know who we were or give a shit?”
Playing festivals meant facing audiences who may be unfamiliar with Dogstar. “People have every right to disappear if they don’t like the band. And to see people hang out and see people still coming toward you, that’s really endearing. I want to keep doing this.”
Just as encouraging, Dogstar have experienced support from some of their musical heroes and contemporaries. Former Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook reached out with an invite to Reeves to join him onstage to play bass on “Love Will Tear Us Apart” when he’s on tour. At one festival gig, Mailhouse was pounding away with his eyes closed when he suddenly heard a drumbeat coming from his kit that he wasn’t playing. Startled, he opened his eyes to find Jane’s Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins hammering alongside him. Then, at the 2024 Ohana Festival in Dana Point, Mike McCready invited Domrose onstage to play guitar with Pearl Jam during the band’s cover of “Rockin’ in the Free World” by Neil Young. The members of Dogstar felt welcomed in a new way.
“In the ’90s, that was not the case,” Mailhouse says with a laugh. “It was quite the opposite.” That moral support from their peers is meaningful and “keeps you right and straight.” “We’re just trying our best,” adds Mailhouse with a grin. “We’re just a little band from Silver Lake.”Check out our 2023 Dogstar cover story here.
