Keanu Reeves reveals the most important bass lesson he learned from Flea

In 2023, Hollywood superstar and everyone’s favorite nice guy Keanu Reeves made a musical comeback with his band Dogstar’s reunion album, Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees – plus a tour that spanned nearly 100 dates.

Fast forward three years, and Dogstar is back with their second-phase sophomore album, All In Now. The record continues to position Reeves as a bona fide bass player rather than a Hollywood A-lister turned musician – thanks to its melodic basslines and low-end-driven songs that earned him the nickname “Chordal Reeves.”

“[It’s] because he plays so many chords on the bass,” singer-guitarist Brett Domrose tells the Los Angeles Times.

“That’s actually how we started when I met Keanu,” drummer Ribert Mailhouse adds. “At first there was no guitar player – it was just him on bass and me on drums.”

And while Reeves’ acting and music worlds rarely collide, he did have the privilege of a one-to-one lesson with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea while filming Gus Van Sant’s 1991 adventure drama My Own Private Idaho.

“He’s such an amazing artist and person, and he didn’t give me a technical lesson; he gave me a philosophical lesson,” Reeves told Bass Player in a 2024 interview, “which reminds me of surfing. It’s like you’ve just got to go do it and you’ve got to feel it.

Dogstar - All In Now (Official Music Video) - YouTube

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“You know, I could give you technique – ‘Here’s your balance, here’s a way to duck, here’s a way to get on the board, here’s how to pop up.’ But eventually, you’ve got to be in the water, and you have to learn about the water and learn about a wave, and you learn by doing it.

“He wasn’t giving me, like, ‘OK, when you’re slapping, try not to use too much of your arm and just stay with your hand,’ you know? It was just like, ‘Play it, feel it.’ I thought that was profound.”

As for what he took from that impromptu lesson, Reeves replied, “I’m still trying to learn how to ‘play it, feel it’. That’s a never-ending journey, isn’t it?”

Elsewhere in the 2024 interview, Reeves admits that he doesn’t see himself as worthy of a signature bass – and reveals which basses his most popular on-screen characters would play.