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70 free Rush trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Rush trivia for people who know a Hentor Sportscaster from a Rickenbacker. This quiz covers the whole run of Canada's greatest power trio: the Willowdale church-basement gig, the Cleveland DJ who broke "Working Man", the do-or-die gamble of 2112, the Rockfield years, the synth era, the long hiatus and comeback, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Fifty Something reunion tour with Anika Nilles behind the kit. You'll get questions on Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart as people, on the stories behind the songs (a Road & Track short story, a Coleridge poem, an Arctic radar line, an airport code), on Hugh Syme's album covers, on chart facts most fans get wrong, and on the books, side projects and cameos. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who owns Moving Pictures, a third are for regular listeners, and the rest are for people who can name the studio in Wales and the composer behind "Monsters!". Every answer is checked against the band's and albums' reference pages.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Rush formed in 1968 in which Canadian city?
Toronto
They played their first gig in a church-basement youth centre called the Coff-Inn and were paid CA$25.
Q 02Which 1981 Rush song, co-written with Max Webster lyricist Pye Dubois, opens Moving Pictures?
Tom Sawyer
Dubois's original poem was called "Louis the Warrior"; Peart reworked it and Lee called the result the band's defining piece of the early 80s.
Q 03The instrumental "YYZ" takes its title from what?
An airport code
The intro spells the letters out in Morse code, which the band first heard broadcast as they flew into Pearson.
Q 04What was Neil Peart's nickname within the band?
The Professor
It came from his resemblance to the Gilligan's Island character; Lee introduced him that way at Massey Hall in 1976.
Q 05In the song series "Cygnus X-1", what kind of object does the explorer aboard the Rocinante fly into?
A black hole
The ship's name comes from Don Quixote's horse, and Book II picks up the story on the next album, Hemispheres.
Q 06In 1996 the three members of Rush became the first rock band to receive which honour as a group?
Order of Canada
They were made Officers on 9 May 1996; the stamp and the Governor General's award came later, in 2013 and 2012.
Q 07Geddy Lee is famous for his devotion to which sport?
Baseball
He sang the Canadian anthem at the 1993 MLB All-Star Game and keeps a scorecard from his seat behind home plate at Blue Jays games.
Q 08In the story of the "2112" suite, the priests of the Temples of Syrinx take their orders from what?
Banks of computers
The protagonist finds a musical instrument in a cave, plays it for the priests, and they smash it as a waste of time.
Q 09"Rivendell", the ballad on Fly by Night, takes its name from the world of which author?
J. R. R. Tolkien
Fly by Night was the first album with Peart, whose taste for fantasy and science fiction changed the band's lyrics overnight.
Q 10What is the name of the 2026-27 reunion tour Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson announced in October 2025?
Fifty Something
What began as a plan for 12 dates grew to 58 shows, and the band added South American and European legs for 2027.
Q 11Neil Peart died in January 2020 after a three-and-a-half-year battle with what?
Brain cancer
The specific diagnosis was glioblastoma; he had retired from touring in December 2015 citing chronic tendinitis.
Q 12Peart's lyrics for "Subdivisions" describe growing up where?
The suburbs
Lifeson fought the producer over the mix, sneaking the guitar fader up only to have it pulled back down.
Q 13Peart credited which writer in the liner notes of 2112, a nod to her novella Anthem?
Ayn Rand
The credit prompted NME to call the band fascists, which especially offended Lee, whose parents were Holocaust survivors.
Q 21Aimee Mann sang guest vocals on which Rush single?
Time Stand Still
The band first hoped for Cyndi Lauper and then Chrissie Hynde; Mann was paid $2,000 for the session.
Q 22Which 1982 single remains Rush's only US top-40 hit?
New World Man
It was dashed off last to even out the two sides of the cassette, then went to No. 1 in Canada and No. 21 in the US.
Q 23Neil Peart's first concert with Rush, opening for Uriah Heep in August 1974, was in which city?
Pittsburgh
He had joined two weeks earlier, having auditioned in shorts with his drums packed in trash bags in a battered Ford Pinto.
Q 14In what year was Rush finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
2013
They had been eligible since 1998; Lifeson's acceptance speech consisted entirely of the words "blah blah blah".
Q 15"Limelight" paraphrases the "All the world's a stage" speech from which Shakespeare play?
As You Like It
The band had already used the phrase as the title of their 1976 live album, and the song also name-checks the next track, "The Camera Eye".
Q 16Which Rush album cover shows a Dalmatian sniffing a red fire hydrant?
Signals
The lawn is AstroTurf on a studio rooftop, and dog biscuits were hidden under the hydrant to get the shot.
Q 17A levitating magician's hat on a hillside covered in rabbits is the cover of which Rush album?
Presto
It was the band's first release through Atlantic after leaving Mercury, and Lifeson says they laughed hysterically when they saw the design.
Q 18The Moving Pictures cover, with its movers carrying paintings, was photographed outside which building?
Queen's Park
The legislature grounds gave a triple pun: movers moving pictures, onlookers moved to tears, and a film crew on the back shooting a moving picture.
Q 19"The Trees" tells of a forest dispute between which two kinds of tree?
Maples and oaks
Peart said it started as a cartoon image of trees acting like people; later he called it a parable about collectivism.
Q 20Which eleven-minute Rush epic was inspired by Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan"?
Xanadu
Despite its length it was captured in a single uninterrupted take at Rockfield, to the shock of the resident engineer.
Q 24DJ Donna Halper broke Rush in the US by playing "Working Man" on WMMS in which city?
Cleveland
The song's blue-collar theme hit home with the city's industrial workforce, and later pressings carry a thank-you to Halper.
Q 25Who was Rush's original drummer, the only one to play on the self-titled debut?
John Rutsey
He was supposed to write the lyrics for the album but tore up his drafts, so Lee rewrote them just before the vocal sessions.
Q 26Who came up with the name "Rush"?
The drummer's brother
Bill thought it was suitably concise, and it stuck; the band was briefly renamed Hadrian when Lee was pushed out in 1969.
Q 27Rockfield Studios, where Rush recorded A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres, is in which country?
Wales
Rockfield lacked even a sofa; Lifeson got so annoyed with a broken door latch that he installed a hydraulic closer himself.
Q 28Le Studio, where Rush recorded Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures, is in which province?
Quebec
In Morin-Heights they taped a pressure-zone microphone to Peart's chest to capture the room ambience while he drummed.
Q 29The album title Grace Under Pressure comes from a quotation by which author?
Ernest Hemingway
Peart felt "courage is grace under pressure" summed up making the record after producer Steve Lillywhite backed out at the last moment.
Q 30The title track of Roll the Bones surprised fans with what kind of section?
A rap
The band tried it with a female voice before Lee's pitched-down delivery won out; Entertainment Weekly decided they were being silly on purpose.