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This metal music trivia quiz has 60 free questions with answers and covers the whole genre from its 1968 birth to Babymetal: Black Sabbath's name and Tony Iommi's fingers, Deep Purple's casino fire, Led Zeppelin's lead balloon, the NWOBHM and Eddie, Judas Priest on a Harley and in court, Ozzy and the bat, Dio's horns, the Jethro Tull Grammy, thrash's Big Four, death and black metal's darkest chapters, Pantera, nu metal, Rammstein, Ghost, Lordi at Eurovision, plus the umlauts, Spinal Tap, Kerrang! and the PMRC hearings. The first questions are easy enough for anyone who owns a black T-shirt; the last ones will test people who can name the first church Varg burned. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
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Q 01Which three British bands, all founded in 1968, are named as heavy metal's most famous pioneers?
Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple
All three were often derided by critics while filling stadiums.
Q 02The first use of 'heavy metal' in a song lyric, describing a motorcycle, comes from which 1968 track?
Born to Be Wild
Steppenwolf's 'heavy metal thunder' became the anthem of Easy Rider a year later.
Q 03Which Beat writer used 'the Heavy Metal Kid' as a character name in his 1961 novel The Soft Machine?
William S. Burroughs
His follow-up Nova Express used 'heavy metal' as a metaphor for addictive drugs.
Q 04Black Sabbath's heavy, down-tuned sound is partly credited to which accident of Tony Iommi's?
He lost his fingertips in a factory
Unable to play normally, he tuned down and leaned on simple power chords.
Q 05Black Sabbath took their name from a 1963 horror film starring whom?
Boris Karloff
Geezer Butler noticed people queuing to be scared and the band wrote a song of the same name.
Q 06Before settling on Black Sabbath, the Birmingham band went by which name?
Earth
Before that they were the Polka Tulk Blues Band.
Q 07Which 1970 Black Sabbath album, alongside their debut, is one of the two records that codified heavy metal?
Paranoid
The self-titled debut is generally accepted as the first heavy metal album; Deep Purple in Rock came out the same year.
Q 08Led Zeppelin's name reportedly came from a joke that a proposed supergroup would go down like what?
A lead balloon
Peter Grant dropped the 'a' from 'lead' so Americans would not say 'leed'.
Q 09The Montreux Casino fire in 'Smoke on the Water' started during whose concert?
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
A fan fired a flare gun into the ceiling; Deep Purple finished recording Machine Head in a hotel corridor.
Q 10Which band did the 1975 Guinness Book name 'the globe's loudest' for a 1972 London concert?
Deep Purple
They have sold over 100 million records.
Q 11Which Sounds journalist coined the term 'New Wave of British Heavy Metal'?
Geoff Barton
Iron Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard led the charge, dropping the blues and speeding up.
Q 12Which NWOBHM band first topped the UK album chart, with 1981's No Sleep 'til Hammersmith?
Motörhead
Lemmy had been fired from Hawkwind in 1975 before forming the band.
Q 13Iron Maiden's mascot, who appears on every album cover, is called what?
Eddie
Eddie the Head was drawn by illustrator Derek Riggs.
Q 14Which Iron Maiden singer flew the band's touring jet, 'Ed Force One', as a licensed airline pilot?
Q 21Thrash metal's 'Big Four' are Slayer, Anthrax, the makers of Master of Puppets, and which band?
Megadeth
Three German bands, Kreator, Sodom and Destruction, carried the style to Europe.
Q 22Which Slayer song about Mengele made Columbia refuse to distribute Reign in Blood in 1986?
Angel of Death
Geffen picked it up but left it off its official release schedule.
Q 23Which hip-hop group name-checked Anthrax on 'Bring the Noise' and later re-recorded it with them?
Public Enemy
Guitarist Scott Ian wore their T-shirt on stage before the collaboration.
Bruce Dickinson
They upgraded to an ex-Air France 747 for the 2016 Book of Souls tour.
Q 15Judas Priest singer Rob Halford famously rode what onto the stage?
A Harley-Davidson
In 1991 he collided with a drum riser hidden in dry ice and finished the show before going to hospital.
Q 16In a 1990 US trial, Judas Priest were accused of hiding a subliminal 'do it' in a cover of which song?
Better by You, Better than Me
The families of two young men who shot themselves sued; the case was dismissed.
Q 17Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat onstage in January 1982 in which city?
Des Moines
He thought it was rubber; he later got rabies shots and eventually sold a plush bat toy with a detachable head.
Q 18Which singer popularised the 'devil horns', saying it came from his Italian grandmother's evil-eye gesture?
Ronnie James Dio
Gene Simmons of Kiss tried to trademark the gesture in 2017.
Q 19Before replacing Ozzy in Black Sabbath in 1979, Ronnie James Dio fronted which Ritchie Blackmore band?
Rainbow
He later formed Dio, whose 1983 debut Holy Diver produced 'Rainbow in the Dark'.
Q 20Which band controversially won the first hard rock/metal Grammy in 1989 over ...And Justice for All?
Jethro Tull
Crest of a Knave beat ...And Justice for All, and the Academy was widely mocked.
Q 24Death metal's name is credited partly to a 1984 demo and 1985 song by which Bay Area band?
Possessed
Florida's Death and Ohio's Necrophagia are the other seminal acts.
Q 25Which stave church was the first burned in Norway's black metal arsons, in June 1992?
Fantoft
The cover of Burzum's EP Aske ('ashes') shows the ruin.
Q 26Which Mayhem member was murdered in 1993 by Burzum's Varg Vikernes?
Euronymous
Vikernes was convicted of murder and arson in May 1994.
Q 27Mayhem's vocalist Per Ohlin pioneered black metal's face paint because he wanted to look like what?
An actual corpse
His 1991 suicide was infamously photographed by Euronymous with a disposable camera.
Q 28Which Texas metal guitarist was shot dead on stage in Columbus, Ohio, in December 2004?
Dimebag Darrell
He was performing with his post-Pantera band Damageplan.
Q 29Pantera's 1990 album Cowboys from Hell is credited with popularising which subgenre?
Groove metal
The band later declared it their 'official' debut despite four earlier glam-era records.
Q 30Which of these bands is NOT listed among the nu metal wave that broke through in the late 1990s?
Pantera
Nu metal mixed in hip-hop and DJs; Ozzfest, launched in 1996, gave it a stage.