Foo Fighters Trivia
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99 free Foo Fighters trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Where did the name come from, who played everything on the first album, and which drummer volunteered himself over the phone? This Foo Fighters trivia quiz has 99 free questions with answers about Dave Grohl's band, from the six-day solo recording at Robert Lang Studios in 1994 through The Colour and the Shape, Everlong and Learn to Fly, the label switch to RCA, the all-analog Wasting Light, the Sonic Highways series, the Wembley and Kia Forum tributes to Taylor Hawkins and the drummer changes since. The early questions are the ones any rock radio listener can answer. Later ones get into lineups and departures, side projects, chart records, Grammy tallies, guest stars from Paul McCartney to Lemmy, and the stories behind Grohl's broken leg and the moving throne. It works for a pre-gig warm-up, a pub quiz music round or a long car ride with the greatest hits on. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the band, its members and its songs, and each question links to the page and sentence that supports it.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Foo Fighters took their name from a term Allied pilots used in World War II for what?
Unidentified flying objects
Unidentified flying objects: Grohl hoped the name would make people think the record came from a group rather than one man, and later called it the stupidest band name in the world.
Q 02How long did Dave Grohl take to record nearly all of the Foo Fighters debut album by himself?
Six days
Six days: Grohl booked a Seattle studio for the week in October 1994 and cut about four songs a day, running from the drum kit to the guitar to the bass while still sweating.
Q 03Who played the only guest part on Foo Fighters' debut album, on 'X-Static'?
Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs
Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs was in the studio watching Grohl record and was handed a guitar for 'X-Static'; every other note and vocal on the album is Grohl's.
Q 04What did Dave Grohl call the label he set up to release the Foo Fighters debut through Capitol?
Roswell Records
Roswell Records was the company Grohl started so the album could come out on his own terms; he licensed it to Capitol and at first wanted no names or photos on the sleeve.
Q 05Foo Fighters' bassist Nate Mendel and first drummer both came from which recently disbanded Seattle group?
Sunny Day Real Estate
Sunny Day Real Estate had just split when Grohl, who had recorded the debut alone and needed a band to play it live, recruited its bassist and its drummer.
Q 06Which former Nirvana touring guitarist joined Foo Fighters' original four-piece lineup in 1994?
Pat Smear
Pat Smear, Nirvana's second guitarist on its final tours, joined in 1994 and quit in 1997, then drifted back as a touring player before rejoining full-time for Wasting Light.
Q 07Where did the Foo Fighters play their first public show, on February 23, 1995?
Arcata, California
Arcata, California: the Jambalaya club hosted the first public show on February 23, 1995, days after the band had tried the songs out at a private party for friends.
Q 08Foo Fighters' video for 'Big Me' parodied the TV commercials for which candy?
Mentos
Mentos: the band hawked 'Footos' in a spoof of the 'Freshmaker' ads, and it backfired when fans pelted them with the mints at shows until they dropped the song for a while.
Q 09Who produced The Colour and the Shape (1997) and returned for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace?
Gil Norton
Gil Norton, the English producer known for the Pixies, cracked the whip on The Colour and the Shape, and the band spelled 'Colour' the British way as a nod to him.
Q 10Which drummer quit after Grohl re-recorded most of The Colour and the Shape's drum tracks himself?
William Goldsmith
William Goldsmith had tracked the album at Bear Creek Studio near Seattle, but Grohl quietly redid nearly every drum part at Grandmaster Recorders in Hollywood; Goldsmith quit in 1997 when he found out.
Q 11Whose touring drummer was Taylor Hawkins before he joined Foo Fighters in 1997?
Alanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette: Hawkins was drumming on her Jagged Little Pill tour when Grohl asked if he knew any drummers, and Hawkins put himself forward.
Q 12Who directed the surreal, dream-hopping music video for "Everlong"?
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry, later the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, built the clip partly as a parody of The Evil Dead, with Grohl fighting off intruders using a giant hand.
Q 13"Everlong" was inspired by Grohl's romance with Louise Post, singer of which band?
Veruca Salt
Veruca Salt: Post, the Chicago band's co-frontwoman, was dating Grohl in 1996 and sang backing vocals on 'Everlong'; Grohl said the song was about being so connected you harmonize perfectly when singing together.
Q 21Which band did Dave Grohl record and tour with as drummer during the troubled making of One by One?
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age: Grohl drummed on their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf while the Foos were in limbo, then returned and re-cut One by One in under two weeks at his home studio near Washington, D.C.
Q 22What unusual format did Foo Fighters choose for their 2005 album In Your Honor?
Half rock, half acoustic
Half rock, half acoustic: Grohl split the double album into one loud disc and one quiet one rather than shuffle the two moods together on a single record.
Q 23Norah Jones duets with Grohl on which bossa nova track from In Your Honor?
Q 14Grohl's solo acoustic 'Everlong' took off after an impromptu 1998 performance on whose radio show?
Howard Stern
Howard Stern: Grohl played 'Everlong' alone on acoustic guitar on Stern's radio show in 1998; the stripped-down arrangement later closed the 2006 live album Skin and Bones and appears on the 2009 Greatest Hits.
Q 15Foo Fighters' 1997 replacement guitarist Franz Stahl was Grohl's old bandmate from which D.C. hardcore band?
Scream
Scream, the Washington-area hardcore band, took on a teenage Grohl as drummer after he lied about his age; when it fell apart in 1990 he was free to join Nirvana.
Q 16Which single became Foo Fighters' first to reach the Billboard Hot 100?
Learn to Fly
Learn to Fly reached number 19, the first Foo Fighters single on the Hot 100; Grohl wrote it at a time when he really did want to train as a pilot.
Q 17In the video for Foo Fighters' 1999 airliner single, which comedy duo play cabin cleaners smuggling sleeping powder?
Tenacious D
Tenacious D — Jack Black and Kyle Gass — play the cleaning crew who spike the plane with 'erotic sleeping powder'; the video won the 2001 Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video.
Q 18Dave Grohl named his Virginia home studio 'Studio 606' after what, as he finally revealed in 2020?
His father's apartment number
His father's apartment number: for years Grohl said 606 was just a number he kept seeing, then in 2020 he told how his dad had lectured him there in 1985 about what to do with his life.
Q 19Chris Shiflett joined Foo Fighters after There Is Nothing Left to Lose from which California punk band?
No Use for a Name
No Use for a Name, the Bay Area punk band, lost Shiflett in 1999 when he won the Foos' open auditions; the band had made its third album as a trio and needed a second guitarist.
Q 20A 'key man clause' let Foo Fighters leave Capitol Records when which executive was forced out?
Gary Gersh
Gary Gersh, the Geffen A&R man who had signed Nirvana, ran Capitol when the Foos signed there; a key-man clause tied to him let the band walk when he was ousted in 1998, and they moved to RCA.
Virginia Moon
Virginia Moon: Grohl felt the song needed a female voice, remembered a Norah Jones record and thought 'it's her vibe', though everyone he told said the pairing made no sense.
Q 24Which Foo Fighters song did Prince cover during his rain-soaked halftime show at Super Bowl XLI in 2007?
Best of You
Best of You: Prince played the Foos' 2005 single in the Miami rain, a surprise because he had earlier objected to the band's own cover of his 'Darling Nikki'.
Q 25Two members of which band joined Foo Fighters on stage at Wembley Stadium in 2008?
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones played 'Rock and Roll' with Grohl on drums and Hawkins singing, then the two Foos swapped places for 'Ramble On'.
Q 26Where did Foo Fighters record Wasting Light (2011)?
Grohl's garage in Encino
Grohl's garage in Encino: he backed the minivan out, moved the lawnmower, set up the drums and soundproofed the door so the neighbours wouldn't call the police.
Q 27Which producer of Nirvana's Nevermind reunited with Dave Grohl to make Foo Fighters' Wasting Light?
Butch Vig
Butch Vig had first come back to produce the two new songs on the band's 2009 Greatest Hits, which is how the reunion for Wasting Light began.
Q 28What technical rule did Foo Fighters impose on the recording of Wasting Light?
All analog, no computers
All analog, no computers: the band tracked to tape with no digital safety net, then cut up the master tape and tucked a piece into the first CD copies of the album.
Q 29Which former Nirvana bandmate of Grohl's guests on Wasting Light's 'I Should Have Known'?
Krist Novoselic
Krist Novoselic plays bass and accordion on 'I Should Have Known', reuniting the Nirvana rhythm section on the first Foo Fighters album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200.
Q 30Foo Fighters' video for 'Walk' is an homage to which 1993 film?
Falling Down
Falling Down, the 1993 Michael Douglas film, is restaged scene by scene: Grohl abandons his car in an L.A. traffic jam and melts down in a fast-food joint; the video won Best Rock Video at the 2011 MTV VMAs.