Green Day’s Side Hustle: The Curious Case of Foxboro Hot Tubs

During late-night jam sessions that would produce 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day began trying a new sound. Looking to test out garage rock, the band put together three tracks which they released under the name “Foxboro Hot Tubs.” The three singles would be expanded upon turning into a 12-track album, Stop, Drop, and Roll!!!, which would make top 25 on the alternative charts, drawing positive reviews all around. The band would perform several live shows over the next few years then fade into obscurity. What happened to the Hot Tubs? Are these songs lost to history, drowned out in the much more successful mother band?

Foxboro Hot Tubs formed in December of 2007, consisting of all main and touring members of Green Day. The band initially released three songs as the Hot Tubs, all of which immediately drew an audience. People began theorizing that the Hot Tubs had a connection to Green Day, prompting the band to reveal themselves. Billie Joe Armstrong was quoted in an interview at the time saying that though the bands had the same members “the only similarity between Foxboro Hot Tubs and Green Day is that we are the same band.” The band would release three more tracks on the Green Day website before releasing their first studio album, Stop, Drop, and Roll!!!, in April of the next year. The album took off with the single “Mother Mary” reaching 16th on alternative radio charts. Over the next four years, the band would perform several sets as Foxboro Hot Tubs, usually as an opening act, before performing a show as Green Day. In 2010 the band would release a new song called “Fuck Time” which would only be heard at rare live performances for years. The next time we heard anything about the Hot Tubs was in 2012 when a trailer for Green Day’s new trio of albums released with a teaser track listing that included “Fuck Time.” The song found its first official release on the second album of the set ¡DOS! which had a sound similar to Stop, Drop, and Roll!!! so much so that the band called it Hot Tubs' second album. 2014 was when the group would play as the Hot Tubs for the last time at the South by Southwest Festival. The Coverups, Green Day’s cover band side project, would play several Hot Tubs hits at a gig in 2019, marking the last official time we would hear a Hot Tubs song live. Foxboro Hot Tubs has a fascinating history and even though they’ve been dormant for five years, there's still hope as we’ve seen in the past that they have no problem coming out of a long hiatus. All of this being said you have to wonder, how is the music? 

Stop, Drop, and Roll!!! is an album without a low point, running 12 tracks long each of which brings something new to the record. It’s billed as a garage rock album; however, this is a massive simplification of what you’re getting. The album has more of an alternative sound than we would hear on a Green Day record but Hot Tubs still dabbles in the punk rock vibe that their mother band is known for with tracks like “Alligator” and “She’s A Saint Not A Celebrity.” On top of these classic sounds, they pulled out some psychedelic rock with “Red Tide” and "Dark Side of Night.” They also slip in some synth rock with “Ruby Room,” which would fit in on a Black Keys album. Stop, Drop, and Roll!!! comes to a close with a surfer rock anthem “Pieces of Truth” a final track that leaves you desperate for more. It's no wonder this album reached 21st on the US Billboard 200. It continues to hold a cult following today, maintaining such popularity that you can walk into any record store worth their vinyl and find it on a lime green special edition disk.

The honorary second Hot Tubs album, ¡DOS!, didn’t connect with fans quite as well as the first. The album is overall a forgettable entry in Green Day’s discography, most of the songs being perfectly fine but not much else. ¡DOS! has a reputation for being uninspired, half due to it being the middle child of a three-record set and half due to it being uninspired. If you’re a Green Day fan, you will find something you like on this album. It’s primarily pop-punk songs that would blend into the background of any other one of their releases. If you are approaching this as a Foxboro Hot Tubs fan, you’re going to be disappointed. My honest advice is that you put “Wow! That’s Loud,” “Stray Heart,” “Fuck Time,” and “Stop When The Red Lights Flash” on a playlist and pretend ¡DOS! is a Hot Tubs EP. No matter how you approach it, it’s obvious why this was their first album since Nimrod to fail to sell 100,000 units in its first week. Releasing three albums in one year is an insane endeavor for any band unless your group happens to be King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Green Day bit off more than they could chew. Though they managed to put out a few gems, the ¡UNO!, ¡DOS!, ¡TRE! lineup turned out to be a bust.

Five years since their last appearance, you have to begin wondering if we have seen the last of Foxboro Hot Tubs. Did ¡DOS! failing turn them off of the idea of working with garage rock in the future? Was the low point in their career in the early 2010s a wake-up call to hone back in on that punk sound that made Green Day icons? It wouldn't be the first time the Hot Tubs suddenly showed up after years of inactivity. However, with Green Day's most recent album, Saviors,selling just 49,000 units in its first week, the band may have bigger concerns than figuring out how to revitalize their late 2000s side project. It might be best that Foxboro Hot Tubs stops where it is; the music came from a wave of inspiration that may not be possible to recapture. We got 12 smash hit songs out of Stop, Drop, and Roll!!! and four more amazing tunes as a bonus off ¡DOS! I think that’s more than enough from a group that can only exist in the spaces between its mother band's world fame.