Keanu Reeves | Don't Quit Your Day Dream | Fender

Always wanted to play bass. I moved to Hollywood, California when I was 20 years old. 1985. And that was my daydream. I wanted to act. Wanted to be in motion pictures. I had started pretty young. I had worked in Toronto, Canada. But part of that daydream too, when I moved out of the house, got in the car, grew up here. Always wanted to play bass. I guess one of the things I love about this plank of wood is the physicality, the sense in the hand, the tones. It's just pretty. I love when I listen to it. I vibrate with the bass tones of it. It spoke to me. Smells good. Don't quit your daydream. In Santa Ana. Oh yeah, we're at soundcheck. Good morning. We're here today in Hawthorne, California at Arch Motorcycle Company. This is Robert Mailhouse. Fender. Saying hi. He's playing drums at Dogstar. This is the founder, Garth Hollinger. Hi, that's me. He's the designer, the magician. This is Brett Domros. Engineer. Not an engineer, but an engineer. Janitor. This is a 1965 Rosewood neck. She sounds beautiful. And this neck is one of the most beautiful necks I've ever played. And the tones. This motorcycle is a custom motorcycle that Garth Hollinger built. I asked Garth if he wanted to start a motorcycle company. He said no. But then I said, come on. He said, why? I said, because we're going to die. This is another example of a KRGT-1. Look at that thing. Oh my gosh. Got a nice detail. Kind of a complication. Go watch. Going quickly. We're moving. This is where we do assembly, repair. We make over 200 parts, which you can see here on the racks. We got a couple of CNC machines. Instead of wood, we're working with some aluminum. Beautiful aluminum. So this is the 1S swing arm. What else? Okay, so that's that. That's that. Okay, let's go over here. This is the Ducati from Reloaded, which is the second Matrix film. Carrie Ann Moss rode this beautiful thing. It's got a whopping 60 miles on it. But she's a beauty. Look at that. I mean, when we talk about aesthetics, I just find that beautiful. The shapes of the guitars that we saw. There's just something, the form and function and the beauty of it. The personalization. You know, getting the chance to be creative. To have a daydream. To try and have that happen. Whether it's learning an instrument, playing an instrument, making music, having an idea. Just seeing something beautiful and trying to bring it out into the world. And meeting like-minded people just working at it. And then to see it, it's just super grateful. Got a nice Italian hero sandwich. Some potato salad. Coca-Cola with crushed ice. Mmm, fried chicken sandwich. Potato salad. Tuna melt. So I was asked, what was my first bass? I've been trying to remember, but I think it was like 1986. So I went to the Hollywood Guitar Center with the daydream of getting a bass guitar. And I ended up, I don't know how, I don't recall. But I ended up, there was a guy there who was selling a bass. He was with a friend. And so... Not at the store, it was like a parking lot sale. I had like a bass drug deal. I think literally like here. I did, but like, look, it spoke to me. I played it, it felt good in the hand. And I was just like, okay. See, like that riff could just be ******* like... Anyway, I think I might have bought like the next week, like a music theory bass. Like, you know, start doing like, you know. But the thing was that I didn't have anyone to play with. I don't know if I'm learning anything. I think I'm a wild animal playing with like a piece of wood. I didn't learn a lot of songs. I didn't, you know, I didn't listen to like a song and try and figure it out. Kids, I regret that. If you're picking up an instrument, it's cool to like figure out what people have done before. But I wasn't doing that. And so I would just play. So I had no theory. I couldn't play blues. I remember one time I was doing a film and Flea was in it. I was in a film with Flea. And I remember there was a house and there was like amps and instruments and stuff like that. And I was like, hey, Flea, can you give me a lesson? And he was like, sure, man. And he was like... And I was like, all right. And I was like, so? And he's like, just feel it, man, just play. And I was like, yeah. So then I played it like... One day I ended up in my house. Then I met Robert Mailhouse. I met at a grocery store. He was wearing a hockey sweater. I play hockey. I was like, hey, man, do you know where a hockey game is? He was like, yeah, we played hockey. And then we were like, he came over and then we go, my God, there's drums. I play drums. And then we started to play. He had a friend from New York. He came over. We started to play. Eventually, we started to make our own songs. And then, of course, once you start making your own songs, let's play a show. So in 1992, Robert, the drummer, named the band Dogstar out of a Henry Miller book. And then we started the band. The guitar is Brett. He plays in stereo, which gives a kind of big sound, sweeping sound, a lot of versatility. Drummer, Motown, rock. I throw a little indie at him, whatever that can mean. And I sit in the middle. My primary influence was Peter Hook. When I heard Joy Division for the first time, it was like... And then hearing Cure after that, where you could repeat almost in a round, have the guitar move around that, have the vocal move around that. That was kind of like how a bass line could sit. That blew my mind. It's really fun to play with them. Really fun to take all of the influences together. We're kind of not the same. In the Venn diagram of rock, we have little sections that kind of overlap. And it's cool to take those influences and how they kind of influence, but also then go through us to become unique to Dogstar. I would say it's almost like in the beginning and the end. The beginning was like improvisation to like a feeling, right? Whether it's a riff that I play, or Brett plays, or even a drum beat that Robert plays, we all start to pick up on it together. You're going from improv, improv, and then you start kind of crafting. What's the scene? You know, if you've got a riff, then is that the verse or it's the chorus? And you kind of get into traditional structure thoughts like, you know, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, out. And then I'd say at the end of it, there's the performance of performance. Theatrical part of it, right? Like an acting. And then as Robert says, you know, play the song, let the song play you. Which for acting can be kind of translated to stay in the moment, be in the moment. For me, the idea of wanting to play and then finding people that I can play with to create the songs that I now can play that have been a part of making is a journey, right? It's not going to be easy. ****! But that'll change, you know, and play music, play music, play music, play music. I mean, music has helped me. I mean, it's so wonderful. It can help you through the tough times. And it helps you celebrate all of the human strains, all the human emotions. It's there. It's the songs we sing. It's the songs we're inspired by. It's the songs that move us. We sing during happy birthday, play music when we celebrate or honor people who pass and come together with music. I mean, I'm saying all these obvious things, but yeah, kids, play music, play music. So then you just start to kind of like try and work out some riffs. You get a riff like this, you take it to the band, and then what happens? Yeah, I'll like take my iPhone, like... This is the Reevesian process.