BIO
It all began when a link to the Foxboro Hot Tubs' Myspace originally was sent out to just a few members of the Green Day fan club (The Idiot Club) in December 2007. There were only 3 songs uploaded to their Myspace player at the time, and the link to their official website was still under construction. Quickly though, as the link was widely being shared on the forums and sent around to people both inside and outside the Green Day community, their popularity began to rise as well as the initial rumor that they were in fact "Green Day" in disguise.
The majority of people believed that this was indeed Green Day working under a new pseudonym, but not everyone was so sure. The sound was very different from previous Green Day, but the singing was unmistakably Billie Joe's. Reactions were mixed, and ranged from
"Well I fuckin' love it, I haven't stopped listening to those 3 songs all day! It's awesome, it's rock and roll, and it's making me dance and feel giddy," to
"This isn't Green Day. It isn't Billie Joe's voice. And either way, it is full of suck."
The Green Day Authority put up a news entry on
December 7th letting people know to visit the bands MySpace . We still weren't sure if it was Green Day, but if it was we wanted to make sure we shared it with as many people as possible. The next day the bands official site, foxborohottubs.com was launched with a free download of the 6-song EP . The original song list included Stop Drop and Roll, Mother Mary, Ruby Room, Red Tide, Highway 1, and She's a Saint not a Celebrity. As word of the new music spread, the official site ran into problems (we assume) causing it to be taken offline randomly and limiting the downloads to the lucky people online at the right time. As soon as word got out that this might indeed be Green Day, articles from
Ultimate Guitar,
PunkNews.org,
AceShowBiz,
Undercover, and even
Perez Hilton started showing up as well as the visits to their Myspace quickly jumping above 15,000 in only a few days.
Things remained pretty quiet while people enjoyed the six new tunes. During that time people did begin to get an understanding (along with more clues) about the name of the band. 'Foxboro' is a reference to Billie Joe and Mike's neighborhood in their hometown of Rodeo, CA. They supposedly used to sneak in and chill inside the neighbor's hot tubs. Also it had been discovered that the 'Ruby Room' (3rd song on the Myspace) is the name of a bar in Oakland, CA ( city in the Bay Area near where Green Day lives/works). On
February 16, 2008 it was released that a 13-song album titled 'Stop Drop & Roll,' would be released sometime soon on a new label called 'Jingletown Records'. The name Jingletown is also the name of a neighborhood in Oakland. A reference to Jingletown is also brought up in Green Day's song '
Homecoming' which has the lyric in the '
We're Coming Home' section, "We're back in the barrio, but to you and me, that's Jingletown."
On
February 26, The Green Day Autority posted news that there was to be a 7" vinyl released for the first single off of 'Stop Drop & Roll.' This single would contain only the two songs 'Mother Mary' and 'She's A Saint Not A Celebrity,' and was to be released on March 25th.
Finally in an e-mail to MTV on
April 10, 2008, Green Day confirmed they were in fact the Foxboro Hot Tubs:
We think that the only similarity [between the Hot Tubs and Green Day] is that we are the same band. That is basically the only similarity. We are Jason White, Jason Freese, Michael Pritchard, Frank Edwin Wright the Third and the Reverend Strychnine Twitch...we are four guys who love to play music and be spontaneous, [and] after a few late night jams and a few too many bottles of wine, we were inspired to record some rockin' eight-track recordings.
On April 22nd, the Foxboro Hot Tubs made their album available to download from their site: foxborohottubsdownloads.com. They also annouced that the physical CD would be available for puchase May 20th. Later on May 12th, the band announced 7 shows for a mini-tour throughout the Southwest USA. Later 3 more shows were added changing the tour dates from May 15th--starting in Oakland, CA--and ending May 28th--in Long Beach, CA. It was also made clear that the tickets would only be sold at the venue and that none of them would be available for online purchase.
The GDA forum posted a section allowing members to discuss, each show or experience they had, enabling a place for useful and fun infomation to be shared among people going to the same shows, or even just people wanting to know when it was best to get in line. Each show's page can be accessed by clicking the city/state from the tour list above. There are over 165 images in the
Picture Vault of the tour, some being from the Foxboro Hot Tubs' website as well as some posted by visitors to GDA.
On June 6, 2009 The Foxboro Hot Tubs filmed their TV debut on Last Call with Carson Daly. The show aired June 12, 2009. They performed "Stop Drop and Roll" and "Mother Mary" and brought many of their stage antics to the audience -- sharing the love with Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, the outfits, the glasses, pulling people on stage, attempts at crowdsurfing. Details can be
read here.
It was announced on October 31, 2009 that the Foxboro Hot Tubs would be performing in Manchester, taking the stage right before Green Day, then playing a much smaller show Sunday at the 'Garage' in London starting around 12:30am, after Green Day's performance at Wembley Arena in London.
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