Dogstar
Let the record show that here in 2026, Dogstar is clearly All In Now.
After a long 20 years of silence as a band, this California-based power trio – guitarist and lead singer Bret Domrose, drummer Robert Mailhouse, and bassist Keanu Reeves – surprised many and perhaps even themselves when they returned in fine form in 2023 with a new album that found the three joyfully making music again and doing it all Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees. Only two years later – after extensive touring in America and around the world playing everywhere from sweaty rock clubs to giant outdoor festivals – Dogstar is returning with strong new songs that leave no doubt that this little band that could is back for good with a powerful sound that is bigger and better than ever before. “It felt like our last album was our ticket into a party,” says Bret Domrose. “And now we’ve shown up to the party – the three of us.”
Dogstar is a group of three friends who have slowly yet surely become a band of brothers – a group with multiple talents committed to picking up the pace and locking into life as a working and increasingly beloved rock band who are excited to get back on the road this summer. “We couldn’t fucking wait,” Keanu Reeves says about Dogstar’s collective desire to get right back to the studio after the biggest and best tour of their lives. “Personally, I loved it all. For me, the attitude was like, ‘Let’s work hard and let’s GO.’ And we really enjoy the variety of songs here – although one way or another, they all do kind of rock.”
As Robert Mailhouse sees it, All In Now is the most vivid reflection of the passion and chemistry that has been driving Dogstar’s heartfelt rock & roll dreams from the start. “The whole album may not hit quite as hard as the title track, but somehow it really sets up the energy at the heart of this album and the fun that we’ve always had playing together.” Indeed, All In Now reflects Dogstar hitting festival stages and experiencing the energy that can happen between a band and a big live audience. “We absorbed that last time out on tour,” says Domrose. “We came off those huge stages playing before big bands for up to like 50,000 people and said, `This is where we are now.’ Not consciously, but all of that soaked in.”
Mailhouse remembers, “Just seeing the smiles on people’s faces and feeling their joy on a musical level. Playing some outdoor festivals, and when it starts to rain, seeing nobody leaving.”
“Those festivals in Europe really made a big, positive impact on us,” adds Reeves.
“We loved playing to people in the afternoon who didn’t necessarily come to see Dogstar, but connected with what we were doing. And that connected with us.” Bret continued, “You never know if people are going to show up, are they going to stay, are they going to listen? It meant a lot that people not only stayed but got into songs that they mostly had never heard before.”
All In Now is an album that loudly and clearly reflects Dogstar’s collective musical passions and growing strengths as a road-tested band. “In your beauty there is a danger,” Domrose sings in the first line of All In Now’s intense opening track, “Math,” and this snaky, darkly sexy track sets the impressive and slightly mysterious tone for a decidedly cohesive album that seems both lyrically and musically full of both beauty and danger.
Throughout the album, the rhythm section of Mailhouse and Reeves sounds more locked in than ever before, while Domrose’s vocals and guitar work fly to increasingly impressive new heights here. Overall, All In Now finds Dogstar confidently rocking harder than ever before on tracks like the title track and “Joy,” and even when tone changes on gems like the wonderfully anthemic “Shallow Easy” and the gorgeously melodic closing song, “Wing,” this remains the altogether bracing sound of a rock band firing on all cylinders and all ready now to get back on the road and play. And somehow in “All In Now” – the propulsive title track and the compelling first single from the new album – Dogstar has created its own theme song about the state of their musical union here in 2026 a band that “has gone from lost to found.”