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The worst-kept secret in rock became less of a secret today, when Green Day dropped MTV a line confirming that, yes, they were the same band as the Foxboro Hot Tubs, whose song “Mother Mary” hit the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart a few weeks back. “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,” the band’s e-mail said. Why did the Bay Area trio decide to make this announcement? I asked Corporate Rock Still Sells columnist Al Shipley if he had any theories, and you may be unsurprised to learn that they mostly involve marketing.
“['Mother Mary'] just dropped off the Modern chart this week,” Al said to me via IM. “I guess this’ll get it back on there pretty quickly now… the album release is still three weeks away, so maybe they were getting nervous that interest has already peaked.
“Although that’d be pretty funny since the whole idea of the project is it’s ’secret’ and not supposed to be as big as a Green Day album.”
Given the state of Warner Music Group’s revenues lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were in “any port in a storm, art be damned” mode.
Green Day Exclusive: Yes, They Are Foxboro Hot Tubs, Just In Case There Was Any Doubt [MTV]
Foxboro Hot Tubs [MySpace]
You should change “[YouTube]” on the link to the band’s MySpace page…
@thatssoraven: thanks. i’m a little tired today.
It sounds like a Beck in ‘98 strategy, where the “side project” album becomes the main event.
(cf. Beck insisting that Mutations wouldn’t be the “official” followup to Odelay, but DGC worked it like a big release anyway and ended up getting a bigger hit album out of it than Midnite Vultures in ‘99 ended up being.)
chris gaines
Sure fooled me. I thought it was the Pop-O-Pies.
It sounds like Green Day trying to out-Hives The Hives.
“We think that the only similarity is that we are the same band. That is basically the only similarity,”
This is poetry.