All right, raise your hand if you think Foxboro Hot Tubs is a place where the Patriots go to ease their aching bones.

Hah! Wrong.

Foxboro Hot Tubs is actually one of the world's most popular bands - well, sort of.

And how would I, a 50-year-old classic rocker who doesn't own an iPod and whose automobile CD player has played only the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen, know this?

Sometimes you can learn something from having a 21-year-old musician for a son. My son Matt is a music student at UMass Lowell and the drummer in a local band called Baylock (shameless self-promotion: visit www.myspace.com/baylockmusic). Matt subscribes to Spin magazine, which is to rock music what Sports Illustrated is to sports. I was flipping through the reviews at the back of the magazine - just in case I missed the release of a new album by The Beatles - when I came across a profile of Foxboro Hot Tubs.

Who the heck are these guys, I thought.

I asked Matt.

His answer: Duh, Dad.

To make a long story short, Foxboro Hot Tubs first hit the music scene last December, when three songs by the band were posted on a Web site.

Wow, these guys are great, listeners said. They sound just like Green Day, but with more of a 1960s garage band edge. Who are they?

It didn't take long before the speculation centered on Green Day itself. The band - one of the world's most popular for nearly 15 years with such songs as "Wake Me Up When September Ends," "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and the acoustic hit that's played at every recent graduation, "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" - had earlier released a collection of songs under the of The Network. It was a way for Green Day to write and record music that was not quite in the Green Day mold. Maybe Foxboro Hot Tubs was another attempt to branch out, fans thought.

After a few weeks, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong ended the speculation by saying: "The only similarity between Green Day and Foxboro Hot Tubs is that we are the same band."

Being the editor of the daily newspaper that serves the town that proudly calls itself "the gem of Norfolk County," I was intrigued not so much by the music - although I actually like Green Day and have even been to one of their shows in Mansfield, with Matt, of course - but by the name. Why Foxboro? Do the members of Green Day fancy themselves the New England Patriots of rock 'n' roll? Does Billie Joe Armstrong have a thing for Tom Brady? And what's up with the hot tubs?

Armstrong added to the speculation by telling MTV News: "The Foxboro Hot Tubs were a place we used to sneak booze and chicks into late at night. But most of the time it was just 'dude soup.'" Before you say "Uh, whatever," that seemingly cryptic remark makes sense. Armstrong and bassist Mike Dirnst grew up in Rodeo, Calif. Foxboro Heights is a subdivision in Rodeo, a townhouse complex that contains, yes, hot tubs.

So, Foxboro Hot Tubs is likely the place where Armstrong and Dirnst snuck in some booze and chicks but mostly just lay there late at night, a couple of guys in warm water - dude soup.

I hope they had the time of their life.

MIKE KIRBY is editor of The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached

at 508-236-0344 or at

mkirby@thesunchronicle.com.