50 Fun Facts About 80s Hair Band

Which band recorded Metal Health (1983), the first heavy metal album to top the Billboard 200?

It knocked The Police's Synchronicity off the top spot in November 1983 and went on to sell six million copies in the US.

Which English group originally recorded 'Cum On Feel the Noize', a 1973 UK No.1 covered into a US hit in 1983?

The original reached No. 98 in America, while the 1983 cover climbed to No. 5 on the Hot 100 and sold a million copies.

Poison formed in 1983 in Mechanicsburg, a town in which state, before relocating to Los Angeles?

The band was originally called Paris and changed its name to Poison in March 1983, just before heading west.

Which future Guns N' Roses guitarist was the other finalist against C.C. DeVille for Poison's lead guitar spot?

The band wanted an East Coast player, and DeVille also brought along a song from his old group: 'Talk Dirty to Me'.

Which Poison ballad, written by Bret Michaels after a pay-phone call from a Dallas laundromat, became the band's only Billboard Hot 100 No. 1?

It topped the chart for three weeks starting on Christmas Eve 1988; Miley Cyrus later covered it in 2010.

Def Leppard formed in 1976 in which English city?

Their first gig was in a school dining hall, and drummer Rick Allen joined when he was only 15.

Which single from Def Leppard's 1987 album reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100?

Producer Mutt Lange first brought it to the band mostly written in the style of a country ballad.

Where was the August 1986 Monsters of Rock festival at which one-armed Rick Allen returned to Def Leppard?

He returned behind a specially designed electronic kit that let him play parts with his feet.

Which keyboard-driven 1984 single gave Van Halen its only Billboard Hot 100 No. 1?

Eddie Van Halen wrote the synth line around 1981 but the rest of the band rejected it for years; it was played on an Oberheim OB-Xa.

Van Halen's album 1984 spent five weeks stuck at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 behind which record?

There was a twist: Eddie Van Halen played a guest guitar solo on the very album that kept his band off the top spot.

Which former Montrose singer replaced David Lee Roth as Van Halen's frontman in 1985?

Eddie Van Halen had once told him Montrose was his favourite band, calling himself a 'Montrose freak'.

Before becoming Van Halen in 1973, the brothers' band briefly used which name after 'Genesis' was taken?

Even earlier they were the Trojan Rubber Co, and they rented their PA from a local singer named David Lee Roth for $10 a night.

Which 1984 single was Twisted Sister's only Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100?

Its slapstick video, with an Animal House-style tyrannical father, became an MTV staple.

Which Twisted Sister frontman testified against the PMRC's warning labels at a 1985 Senate hearing?

He turned up in full stage gear and read a prepared statement defending 'Under the Blade' and 'We're Not Gonna Take It'.

Twisted Sister formed in 1972 in the borough of Ho-Ho-Kus, in which US state?

The band later based itself on Long Island and grew out of an earlier group called Silver Star.

On which 1982 Whitesnake album did 'Here I Go Again' first appear?

David Coverdale and Bernie Marsden wrote it in late 1981 while Coverdale was holed up in a villa in southern Portugal.

David Coverdale formed Whitesnake in 1978 as a backing band shortly after leaving which group?

His first two solo albums leaned on blues, soul and funk because he wanted distance from his old band's hard rock sound.

Which model on the cover of Ratt's 1984 debut Out of the Cellar went on to star in Whitesnake's 1987 videos?

At the time she was dating Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby; she later married David Coverdale.

Which veteran comedian appeared in drag in Ratt's 1984 'Round and Round' video?

He was the uncle of the band's manager, Marshall Berle, and played his 'Uncle Miltie' drag character.

Dokken's 1987 single 'Dream Warriors' was recorded for the soundtrack of which horror sequel?

The video had the band interacting with the film's characters, and the single reached No. 22.

Dokken's debut album Breaking the Chains was recorded in 1981 and first released in which country?

Early pressings came out under the name 'Don Dokken'; while there, Don also demoed songs with the Scorpions for Blackout.

The band Europe, of 'The Final Countdown' fame, comes from which country?

Named after the continent, they got their break by winning the first televised Rock-SM championship in 1982.

Joey Tempest's lyrics for 'The Final Countdown' were inspired by which David Bowie song?

The keyboard riff dates to 1981-82, played on a Korg Polysix Tempest had borrowed; the song hit No. 1 in 25 countries.

Blackie Lawless toured as guitarist for which glam band after Johnny Thunders quit mid-tour in 1975?

He only stayed for the rest of that Florida tour, then formed Sister, a band that later briefly included Nikki Sixx.

Which W.A.S.P. guitarist is interviewed drunk in a pool, mother beside him, in The Decline of Western Civilization II?

Penelope Spheeris shot the film between August 1987 and February 1988; it also features Ozzy, Poison and Lemmy.

Great White's biggest hit, 'Once Bitten, Twice Shy', was a cover of a UK single by which artist?

It remains the only Great White single ever certified gold.

Under what name did Great White perform before manager Alan Niven suggested the change?

Niven got the idea when someone in a crowd outside the Troubadour saw Mark Kendall lean out of a car window and said 'there goes Great White'.

Which 1991 Skid Row album was the first heavy metal record to debut at No. 1 in the SoundScan era?

It sold 134,000 copies in its first week; before SoundScan, only Elton John and Michael Jackson had ever debuted at No. 1.

Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, raised in Peterborough, Ontario, was born in which country?

The band spotted him singing at a rock photographer's wedding when he was 18 and asked him to join.

Skid Row's management reportedly paid $35,000 to which guitarist for the rights to the band name?

The deal came just before their debut, after Jon Bon Jovi's manager Doc McGhee got them signed to Atlantic.

Which 1987 album, home to 'Sweet Child o' Mine', is the best-selling US debut album ever?

It initially flopped and only took off a year later after 'Welcome to the Jungle' finally got video airplay.

Axl Rose's girlfriend Erin, subject of 'Sweet Child o' Mine', was the daughter of one half of which duo?

The riff started as Slash's warm-up 'circus' melody during a jam session; readers of Total Guitar later voted it the greatest riff of all time.

Which star spotted Cinderella at the Empire Rock Club and tipped off A&R man Derek Shulman?

Gene Simmons had tried earlier to get them a deal with PolyGram and been turned down.

Bon Jovi named Slippery When Wet after visiting what kind of establishment in Vancouver?

The album was recorded at Little Mountain Sound Studios and spent eight weeks at No. 1 in the US.

Vince Neil was fronting which band when Mötley Crüe discovered him in 1981?

Tommy Lee already knew him from Charter Oak High School in Covina; the other options were the early bands of Lee, Nikki Sixx and Blackie Lawless.

What was the nickname of the Hanoi Rocks drummer killed in Vince Neil's 1984 car crash?

Nicholas Dingley died when Neil crashed his De Tomaso Pantera; Mötley Crüe dedicated Theatre of Pain to him.

Which 1989 album, made after Mötley Crüe got sober, is the band's only Billboard 200 number one?

Bob Rock produced it in Vancouver, and Steven Tyler, Bryan Adams and Skid Row all sang backing vocals.

Nikki Sixx wrote 'Kickstart My Heart' about surviving what?

He was clinically dead for two minutes before paramedics revived him with two shots of adrenaline.

Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil (1983) covers 'Helter Skelter', originally by which band?

Nikki Sixx called that group 'wimpy' yet listed this song and The White Album among his all-time favourites.

What was Warrant's second album going to be titled before it became Cherry Pie?

Jani Lane wrote the new title track in about fifteen minutes on a pizza box, which is now on display at a Hard Rock Cafe in Florida.

Which band's T-shirt did wimpy neighbour Stewart wear on Beavis and Butt-Head?

The joke followed the band through both revivals of the show, in 2011 and 2022.

Which VJ became the long-running host of MTV's Headbangers Ball after Kevin Seal and Adam Curry?

The show launched on April 18, 1987, and he learned of its 1995 cancellation by phone after taping what turned out to be the final episode.

Which band's Nevermind replaced Michael Jackson's Dangerous at No. 1 in January 1992?

The word 'hair metal' itself only came into common use in the early 1990s as a put-down once grunge took over.

Which Sunset Strip club, run by a gangster-costumed owner, featured Van Halen nightly in the late 1970s?

The Doors were also a house band there before signing; Poison, Warrant and Guns N' Roses all played it on the way up.

Which Sunset Strip club opened in 1964, hired the Doors as house band, and later launched glam metal?

It opened with a live band led by Johnny Rivers and a DJ spinning records from a cage suspended beside the stage.

The glam-metal jukebox musical Rock of Ages is set in which fictional Sunset Strip club?

Despite the title, Def Leppard's 'Rock of Ages' was not in the original Broadway production, which ran for 2,328 performances.

The August 1989 Moscow Music Peace Festival, organised by manager Doc McGhee, was held at which venue?

Mötley Crüe were furious that McGhee gave headliner Bon Jovi more stage production; the show inspired Scorpions' 'Wind of Change'.

Christian metal band Stryper took its name from a passage in which book of the Bible?

The line 'with his stripes we are healed' is worked into the band's logo.

Vixen, the all-female glam metal band behind "Edge of a Broken Heart", was formed in 1973 in which city?

Founder Jan Kuehnemund started it after high school; the band was later dubbed 'the female Bon Jovi'.

Lita Ford's biggest hit, the 1989 ballad 'Close My Eyes Forever', was a duet with which singer?

The former Runaways guitarist took it to No. 8 on the Hot 100.