Australian Music Trivia
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50 free Australian Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Australia has exported a lot more than a flute riff that sounded suspiciously like Kookaburra. These Australian music trivia questions and answers cover AC/DC and INXS, Kylie and Olivia, Midnight Oil and Cold Chisel, the Bee Gees' Queensland years, Tame Impala, Sia, The Wiggles, the ARIAs, Triple J's Hottest 100 and the anthem arguments. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Good for a pub quiz, an Australia Day round or a Hottest 100 party.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was AC/DC formed in 1973?
Sydney
Sydney is where the band took shape in late 1973, under a name the founders' sister is said to have spotted on her sewing machine.
Q 02What is the surname of the two brothers who founded AC/DC?
Young
Angus Young first wore his schoolboy uniform on stage in 1974 at his sister Margaret's suggestion, while brother Malcolm held down rhythm guitar.
Q 03Which AC/DC singer died of alcohol poisoning in 1980, months after Highway to Hell?
Bon Scott
Bon Scott's death nearly finished AC/DC: the band thought about quitting until his family urged them to find a new singer and carry on.
Q 04Which 1980 AC/DC album became one of the best-selling albums of all time?
Back in Black
Back in Black wears its all-black cover as a sign of mourning for the singer the band had lost months earlier.
Q 05Which singer fronted INXS for 20 years?
Michael Hutchence
Michael Hutchence sang with INXS until his death in 1997, and in 2005 the group picked a successor, J.D. Fortune, through the reality TV show Rock Star: INXS.
Q 06Which INXS single was the band's only US number one?
Need You Tonight
Need You Tonight began as an idea that hit the band's keyboardist as he left for the airport, so he kept his taxi waiting while he taped a demo.
Q 07Which Australian band started out in 1977 as The Farriss Brothers?
INXS
INXS dropped the family name at the urging of Midnight Oil's manager, Gary Morris, after touring as that band's support act.
Q 08Which role did Kylie Minogue play on the soap opera Neighbours?
Charlene Mitchell
Charlene Mitchell made Kylie a household name, and her pop career began when she sang 'The Loco-Motion' at a football club benefit with her castmates and was signed by Mushroom Records.
Q 09Which Kylie Minogue hit has a 'la la la' hook?
Can't Get You Out of My Head
Can't Get You Out of My Head was turned down by S Club 7 and Sophie Ellis-Bextor before Kylie recorded it.
Q 10Which Midnight Oil frontman later served as an Australian federal government minister?
Peter Garrett
Peter Garrett sang against uranium mining with Midnight Oil, yet as environment minister in 2008 he approved the expansion of a South Australian uranium mine.
Q 11Which 1987 Midnight Oil album produced 'Beds Are Burning' and 'The Dead Heart'?
Diesel and Dust
Diesel and Dust grew out of the band's 1986 Blackfella/Whitefella tour, months spent playing remote Aboriginal communities alongside the Warumpi Band.
Q 12Who is the Scottish-born frontman of Men at Work?
Colin Hay
Colin Hay was 14 when his family left Scotland for Melbourne in 1967, and Men at Work grew out of the acoustic duo he formed with guitarist Ron Strykert.
Q 13A 2010 court ruled that the flute riff in 'Down Under' was based on which song?
Kookaburra
Kookaburra's copyright owners won 5 per cent of the song's royalties dating back to 2002, far less than the share they had asked the court for.
Q 21Where were the Bee Gees' Gibb brothers born?
Isle of Man
Isle of Man was only the first stop: the Gibb family moved to Manchester, where the brothers first sang in local cinemas, and then in the late 1950s to Queensland.
Q 22Which band has Nick Cave fronted since 1983?
The Bad Seeds
The Bad Seeds found a mainstream audience with 'Where the Wild Roses Grow', a murder ballad Cave sang as a duet with pop star Kylie Minogue.
Q 23Who was the lead singer of 1960s folk-pop group The Seekers?
Judith Durham
Judith Durham walked away at the height of the group's fame in 1968 to go solo, a year after all four Seekers were named Australians of the Year.
Q 14Which album was number one in America in January 1983 while its single 'Down Under' also topped the chart?
Business as Usual
Business as Usual spent 15 weeks at number one in America, even though the band's US label had twice refused to release it.
Q 15Who wrote and sang lead on Crowded House's 'Don't Dream It's Over'?
Neil Finn
Neil Finn formed Crowded House in 1985 with drummer Paul Hester after their previous band, Split Enz, broke up.
Q 16In which city was Sia born and raised?
Adelaide
Adelaide's acid jazz band Crisp gave Sia her start as a singer in the mid-1990s, before she moved to London and sang with Zero 7.
Q 17Which child dancer starred in Sia's 'Chandelier' video and its follow-ups?
Maddie Ziegler
Maddie Ziegler was an 11-year-old star of the reality show Dance Moms when Sia, a fan of the show, tweeted to ask her to dance in the video.
Q 18Tame Impala is essentially the studio project of which musician?
Kevin Parker
Kevin Parker writes, records, performs and produces the music alone in the studio; only on tour does Tame Impala become a full band.
Q 19In which city did Tame Impala begin in 2007?
Perth
Perth is where much of the second album, Lonerism, was made: a record about isolation, recorded at home and almost single-handed.
Q 20Silverchair formed in which New South Wales city?
Newcastle
Newcastle schoolmates Silverchair won a national demo competition in 1994, and the winning song, 'Tomorrow', went on to spend six weeks at number one.
Q 24Which 1986 John Farnham album became the biggest-selling album in Australia by a local artist?
Whispering Jack
Whispering Jack only got made because Farnham's manager, Glenn Wheatley, mortgaged his own house to pay for it after the major labels passed.
Q 25Which Olivia Newton-John single was Billboard's highest-ranking Hot 100 song of the 1980s?
Physical
Physical topped the US chart for ten weeks and swapped Newton-John's clean-cut image for a far cheekier one.
Q 26Which pub rock band did Jimmy Barnes front before his solo career?
Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel's debut single 'Khe Sanh' follows a Vietnam veteran who can't settle back home; it peaked at just number 41 in 1978, yet APRA later voted it one of the ten best Australian songs.
Q 27In which city was Jimmy Barnes born?
Glasgow
Glasgow was home until he was five, when his family emigrated to Australia; born James Swan, he later took the surname of his stepfather, Reg Barnes.
Q 28Powderfinger formed in 1989 in which city?
Brisbane
Brisbane's Powderfinger split in 2010, then reunited online a decade later for One Night Lonely, a livestreamed show played from four separate locations.
Q 29Who were the two members of Savage Garden?
Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones
Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones met on Queensland's covers band circuit in the early 1990s, then broke away to record demos of their own songs.
Q 30What were Wiggles founders Anthony Field, Murray Cook and Greg Page studying at Macquarie University?
Pre-school teaching
Pre-school teaching students Field, Cook and Page built the first Wiggles album on early childhood ideas, with Field's old Cockroaches bandmate Jeff Fatt drafted in on keyboards.