Bon Jovi Trivia
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97 free Bon Jovi trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
41 free Bon Jovi trivia questions with answers. Bon Jovi have sold more than 130 million records and played 3,000 shows across 50 countries, and this quiz covers the whole run. Forty questions take in the Sayreville beginnings and the radio-station demo of 'Runaway', the strip club that named Slippery When Wet, the talk box on 'Livin' on a Prayer', the record five top-tens off New Jersey, the Moscow Music Peace Festival, Keep the Faith and 'Always', the four-year hiatus, 'It's My Life' and the Crush comeback, the country crossover with Jennifer Nettles, Sambora's exit, the 2018 Rock Hall induction and the 2024 documentary. Easy questions ask where the band is from and who plays drums; the hard ones want the producer of Slippery When Wet, the studio musician who played bass on 'Runaway' before joining decades later, the Vegas chapel where Jon got married and the film that earned him an Oscar nomination. There is a little on Jon's acting, his football team and his pay-what-you-can restaurant too. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the band, its members, albums and singles, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Song lyrics are never quoted.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which New Jersey town was Bon Jovi formed in 1983?
Sayreville
Sayreville is where Jon grew up and went to high school, and New Jersey has since named the Garden State Parkway service area in the town after him.
Q 02What is Jon Bon Jovi's birth name?
John Francis Bongiovi Jr.
John Francis Bongiovi Jr. was still billed as John Bongiovi on his first record; his respelled stage surname later named the band too, in place of the planned Johnny Electric.
Q 03Who was the drummer in Bon Jovi's original 1983 lineup?
Tico Torres
Tico Torres was the band's seasoned hand, having already played with the Marvelettes and Chuck Berry; he came in through a former bandmate from the New Jersey group Phantom's Opera.
Q 04Which Bon Jovi member had quit an earlier group with Jon to study medicine?
David Bryan
David Bryan was a pre-med student at Rutgers with a perfect grade average when he decided music mattered more, and he won a place at Juilliard before Jon called him back.
Q 05Jon Bon Jovi's first professional recording was a novelty Christmas song tied to which film franchise?
Star Wars
Star Wars: he sang lead on 'R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas' after his cousin, the album's co-producer, put him forward; Jon was sweeping floors at the studio at the time.
Q 06Which E Street Band member played keyboards on the original 'Runaway' recording?
Roy Bittan
Roy Bittan was one of the session players Jon hired for the song; another, bassist Hugh McDonald, would join Bon Jovi's lineup more than a decade later.
Q 07Bon Jovi's 'Runaway' first got airplay thanks to what kind of release?
A station's local-talent album
A station's local-talent album: WAPP in New York put the demo on its homegrown compilation, it became a surprise hit, and Jon had to assemble a band to tour behind it.
Q 08Which future Skid Row guitarist toured with Bon Jovi in 1983 before Richie Sambora joined?
Dave Sabo
Dave Sabo, a childhood friend of Jon's, made a pact with him that whoever made it first would help the other; Jon later helped Skid Row land its record deal.
Q 09Which band was cited as the model when Bon Jovi chose a two-word name?
Van Halen
Van Halen was the example an employee of their manager pointed to when suggesting Jon's surname; until then the group's working idea had been the name Johnny Electric.
Q 10Which professional songwriter did Bon Jovi bring in as a collaborator for their third album?
Desmond Child
Desmond Child co-wrote the album's two biggest hits; the band then auditioned 30 songs for local teenagers and built the running order on their opinions.
Q 11In which city did Bon Jovi record Slippery When Wet?
Vancouver
Vancouver was home to producer Bruce Fairbairn's base, Little Mountain Sound; the band spent six months there in 1986 and came back to make its next two albums.
Q 12Where did Bon Jovi get the title Slippery When Wet?
A visit to a strip club
A visit to a strip club inspired the name, Jon has said; a rejected cover shot of the band dressed as cowboys was reused for the 'Wanted Dead or Alive' single.
Q 13What object is on Slippery When Wet's final cover?
A garbage bag
A garbage bag: after the planned cover was pulled just before release, Jon had a bag sprayed with water and wrote the title across it himself; the album behind it spent eight weeks at number one.
Q 21Which TV series was reshaped by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora's stripped-down duet at a 1989 awards show?
MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged was already in development, but its showrunners said the duet turned it from a showcase for up-and-coming artists into a stage for big arena acts.
Q 22Jon Bon Jovi's solo hit 'Blaze of Glory' was recorded for which film?
Young Guns II
Young Guns II star Emilio Estevez had asked to use 'Wanted Dead or Alive'; Jon felt its touring lyrics didn't suit a Western and wrote a new song instead.
Q 23Which manager did Jon Bon Jovi fire in 1991?
Doc McGhee
Doc McGhee had managed the band since its early days; after firing him, Jon took over the job himself by setting up Bon Jovi Management.
Q 14Which was Bon Jovi's first Billboard Hot 100 number one?
'You Give Love a Bad Name'
'You Give Love a Bad Name' reused a chorus tune first recorded by Bonnie Tyler under another title with different words; it reached number one in November 1986.
Q 15What device gives Richie Sambora's guitar riff on 'Livin' on a Prayer' its distinctive voice-like sound?
A talk box
A talk box pipes the guitar's sound through a tube into the player's mouth, which shapes it like speech; Jon disliked the song's first version until Sambora talked him into reworking it.
Q 16What are the names of the struggling working-class couple in 'Livin' on a Prayer'?
Tommy and Gina
Tommy and Gina are a dockworker idled by a strike and a diner waitress; the band brought the pair back for a name-check in 'It's My Life' in 2000.
Q 17Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora was married from 1994 to 2007 to which Melrose Place star?
Heather Locklear
Heather Locklear married Sambora in Paris in 1994; the band later counted the couple's divorce among the upheavals it was living through when it made its 2007 album.
Q 18Bon Jovi's 'Wanted Dead or Alive' was long the theme of which Discovery Channel series?
Deadliest Catch
Deadliest Catch paired its crab fishermen with a song Jon wrote about touring, in which he likened a rock band to outlaws riding into town.
Q 19Which number-one hit was the lead single from New Jersey, the 1988 album with five Top 10 hits?
'Bad Medicine'
'Bad Medicine' came out ahead of an album the band wanted to be a double LP until the label refused; one working title, Sons of Beaches, winked at Slippery When Wet.
Q 20In August 1989 Bon Jovi played which landmark event in the Soviet Union?
The Moscow Music Peace Festival
The Moscow Music Peace Festival put Western hard rock acts on a Soviet stadium stage with official approval, and the album New Jersey was issued in the USSR by the state label Melodiya.
Q 24Which producer worked with Bon Jovi on Keep the Faith in 1992?
Bob Rock
Bob Rock had engineered and mixed Slippery When Wet under Bruce Fairbairn; promoted to producer, he gave Keep the Faith a more serious take on the band's sound.
Q 25Which original member, the band's bassist, left Bon Jovi in 1994 in its first lineup change?
Alec John Such
Alec John Such was replaced by Hugh McDonald, who had played bass on 'Runaway' back in 1982 yet was kept as an unofficial member for more than twenty years.
Q 26Which 2000 album, led by 'It's My Life', brought Bon Jovi back from a years-long hiatus?
Crush
Crush was meant to reunite the band with the producer of Slippery When Wet, but the plan collapsed when Bruce Fairbairn died, and newcomer Luke Ebbin co-produced it instead.
Q 27Which Swedish pop hitmaker co-wrote 'It's My Life' with Jon and Richie?
Max Martin
Max Martin's co-write nearly lost its salute to Frank Sinatra: Sambora objected to the second-verse line about doing it 'My Way', but Jon insisted on honouring his fellow New Jerseyan.
Q 28Bon Jovi's August 2000 concerts were the last ever held at which venue before its demolition?
The old Wembley Stadium
The old Wembley Stadium heard its last music from Bon Jovi in August 2000; the band was booked as the first act to play the rebuilt stadium too, until building delays moved those shows elsewhere.
Q 29Which country singer joined Bon Jovi on the country version of 'Who Says You Can't Go Home'?
Jennifer Nettles
Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland helped make it the first single by a rock band to top Billboard's country chart, a success that pushed the band to record its next album in Nashville.
Q 30Which 2007 album leaned into Nashville-style country influences?
Lost Highway
Lost Highway grew out of the band's surprise country chart-topper the year before; Jon called it a Bon Jovi album influenced by Nashville, and its tour was Billboard's top-grossing of 2008.