50 Fun Facts About The Clash

Which Netflix series set in 1983 features the Clash hit Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Stranger Things leans on a rare Clash hit sung by guitarist Mick Jones rather than frontman Joe Strummer, first released on Combat Rock in 1982.

The pink and green lettering on the Clash's London Calling cover copies which singer's debut album?

Elvis Presley's self-titled debut supplied the layout, with pink letters down the side and green across the bottom. Designer Ray Lowry paired it with a photo its photographer thought too blurred.

A 1991 advert for which brand sent the Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go to number one in the UK?

Levi's used the 1982 song in a jeans commercial, and the reissue became the band's only UK number-one single, five years after they split.

Which M.I.A. hit is built around a sample from the Clash's Combat Rock track Straight to Hell?

Paper Planes earned the Clash's songwriters a co-writing credit, and a second one when Jay-Z and T.I. sampled it in turn for Swagga Like Us.

The Clash's paint-spattered outfits at an early gig in August 1976 were nicknamed after which American painter?

Jackson Pollock outfits were the look for an invitation-only gig at the band's Camden rehearsal studio, their first performance in the five weeks since their debut.

Rock the Casbah by the Clash echoes a real ban on Western music after which country's revolution?

Iran outlawed Western music after its revolution. The tune came from drummer Topper Headon, who recorded the drums, piano and bass himself before his bandmates arrived.

Bassist Paul Simonon named the Clash after noticing the word recurring while he was reading what?

Newspapers kept printing the word 'clash', Simonon said, and it replaced two short-lived names, the Weak Heartdrops and the Psychotic Negatives.

The nuclear accident alluded to in the Clash's London Calling had happened months earlier at which power plant?

Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania suffered a reactor meltdown in March 1979, and Joe Strummer worked the scare into a song full of looming disasters.

Clash bassist Paul Simonon spent two weeks in jail in 2011 after boarding an Arctic oil rig with which group?

Greenpeace had Simonon aboard its ship Esperanza posing as an assistant cook, and his crewmates only learned who he was after the voyage.

Joe Strummer of the Clash took his stage name from his basic strumming of which instrument while busking?

Ukulele busking in the London Underground gave John Mellor his new name, replacing the earlier nickname Woody.

The Clash played their first gig in Sheffield on 4 July 1976 as the support act for which band?

Sex Pistols headlined at the Black Swan, and the Clash took the slot to get on stage before rivals the Damned, who made their own debut two days later.

The Clash's triple album Sandinista! is named after rebels who had just taken power in which country?

Nicaragua's Sandinistas toppled the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the year before the album appeared, and its catalogue number, FSLN1, spells out the party's initials.

Which Clash song was added to London Calling so late that the album's first sleeves never listed it?

Train in Vain was a spare track written for a cancelled NME flexi disc. The unlisted closer became the band's first US Top 40 single.

Joe Strummer and Topper Headon of the Clash were arrested in 1977 for stealing what from a Newcastle hotel?

Pillowcases got the pair arrested the day after a Newcastle gig on the White Riot Tour, the same tour on which fans tore out seats at London's Rainbow Theatre.

Joe Strummer of the Clash stepped in as singer of which Celtic punk band for a 1991 tour?

The Pogues already knew Strummer well: he had filled in for their ailing guitarist on a 1987 tour and produced their album Hell's Ditch.

Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of the Clash reunited on a 2010 album and tour by which band?

Gorillaz put the pair on the title track of Plastic Beach, their first work together in over twenty years, and then took them on the road in its live band.

Mick Jones played his last Clash show at the 1983 US Festival, bankrolled by which computer pioneer?

Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder, paid for the festival himself and lost millions on it. Before going on, the band demanded a $100,000 donation to charity.

The Clash's 2013 box set Sound System came packaged as a replica of which kind of music player?

Boombox packaging designed by Paul Simonon held the remastered albums along with dog tags, badges, stickers and reprints of the band's old fanzine.

The Clash let the punk band Beton rework London Calling as a fundraising anthem for which country?

Ukraine's Beton rewrote the words weeks after Russia invaded, with the surviving members' blessing, and sales raised money for the country's defence.

Which magazine named the Clash's London Calling the best album of the 1980s, although Britain got it in 1979?

Rolling Stone could count it as an Eighties record because the American release came in January 1980, a month after the British one.

The title of the Clash's London Calling echoes the wartime station identification of which broadcaster?

BBC World Service announcers opened wartime broadcasts to occupied countries with the phrase. Joe Strummer later hosted a show named after the song on the same network.

The Clash's London Calling fades out on a Morse code signal that spells which message?

SOS closes the song as a final distress call, echoing its fear that a flooded River Thames would drown central London.

Which animal keeps wandering through the Clash's Rock the Casbah video, filmed around Austin, Texas?

Armadillo cameos run through the video, in which a Muslim hitchhiker and a Hasidic limo driver become friends on the road to a Clash concert.

Which London event, where Joe Strummer was caught up in a 1976 riot, inspired the Clash's first single?

Notting Hill Carnival ended in battles between Black youths and police. Photographs of that day became the band's stage backdrop and the back cover of their debut album.

Which 1981 Clash single, inspired by New York hip hop acts, shares its title with a classic Western film?

The Magnificent Seven grew out of Mick Jones's passion for New York acts like the Sugarhill Gang, and Joe Strummer wrote its words on the spot in the studio.

Which song made famous by the Bobby Fuller Four did the Clash cover on their 1979 EP The Cost of Living?

I Fought the Law reached Strummer and Jones through a jukebox in a San Francisco studio, and their cover won the band its first American airplay.

Which band did Mick Jones form with a film director in 1984 after his sacking from the Clash?

Big Audio Dynamite later reunited Jones with the man who sacked him: Joe Strummer co-wrote five songs on its second album and co-produced it.

Clash guitarist Mick Jones produced the 2002 debut album by which British indie band?

The Libertines made Up the Bracket with Jones and kept him on for their second album, and he went on to produce the debut by singer Pete Doherty's next band, Babyshambles.

Clash drummer Nicky Headon got the nickname Topper because he resembled a comic character who was what animal?

Monkey, as in Mickey the Monkey, star of the Topper comic. Paul Simonon spotted the likeness in a drummer the band found only after trying around 200 others.

Joe Strummer of the Clash vanished in 1982, just before Combat Rock came out, and hid in which country?

France was not the plan: his manager staged the vanishing act to boost slow ticket sales and expected him to lie low in Texas, but Strummer disappeared for real.

Joe Strummer quit which pub rock band, formed in a west London squat, to front the Clash in 1976?

The 101ers took their name from 101 Walterton Road, the Maida Vale squat they shared, though rumour tied it to the torture room in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Which original Clash drummer returned in 1982 to replace Topper Headon and later played with Black Sabbath?

Terry Chimes had drummed on the debut album, whose sleeve credited him as Tory Crimes, and he is the one miming in the Rock the Casbah video.

Which founding Clash guitarist left before the band made a record and later co-founded Public Image Ltd?

Keith Levene helped persuade Joe Strummer to join, then left within months. He still earned a co-writing credit on the debut album's What's My Name.

Which reggae producer, in London to work with Bob Marley, produced the Clash's 1977 single Complete Control?

Lee Perry, known as Scratch, had been so taken with the band's cover of a song he produced that he hung their picture on the wall of his Black Ark studio.

Which producer swung a ladder and upturned chairs to fire up the Clash while making London Calling?

Guy Stevens also poured a bottle of wine over a piano Joe Strummer was playing. He was the same man who had given Mott the Hoople and Procol Harum their names.

Which photographer took the London Calling cover shot of the Clash's Paul Simonon smashing his instrument on stage?

Pennie Smith caught the moment at New York's Palladium, where Simonon was furious that bouncers would not let the audience stand up.

In 2010 the cover of the Clash's London Calling was one of ten British album sleeves reproduced on what?

Postage stamps in Royal Mail's Classic Album Cover set carried the image. The guitar being wrecked on it later went on show at the Museum of London.

Which 1980 film follows a Clash fan who quits his job in a Soho sex shop to become the band's roadie?

Rude Boy so displeased the band that they had badges made saying they did not want the film, yet it won an honourable mention at the Berlin Film Festival.

Which director of many Clash videos won a Grammy for the band's documentary Westway to the World?

Don Letts was the DJ at the Roxy, where the dub and reggae he played between punk bands rubbed off on the group, and he is pictured on the sleeve of Black Market Clash.

Which English singer named his charity for prisoners after the Clash B-side Jail Guitar Doors?

Billy Bragg's charity supplies instruments to prison inmates, and Mick Jones and Topper Headon reunited in 2009 to re-record the song with him.

Joe Strummer sang the backing vocals of the Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go in which language?

Spanish was a spur-of-the-moment idea from Strummer, so the studio's tape operator phoned his Ecuadorian mother, who translated the words down the line.

The Clash were inducted into which American institution in March 2003, soon after Joe Strummer died?

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame hopes of a reunion set had already split the band: three members wanted to play, but Paul Simonon felt the pricey event was against their spirit.

Which American rock star opened his 2009 Hyde Park concert with a cover of the Clash's London Calling?

Bruce Springsteen had form: at the 2003 Grammys he played the song with Dave Grohl and others in tribute to Joe Strummer, who had died two months earlier.

Hours after their own first gig in July 1976, the Clash went to see which New York punk band play in London?

Ramones drew most of London's punk inner circle to Dingwalls that night, and the evening ended with Paul Simonon scuffling with the Stranglers' bass player.

The Clash opened for which veteran British band at New York's Shea Stadium on its 1982 farewell tour?

The Who had them open two nights at Shea Stadium. Footage from the second became the Should I Stay or Should I Go video, and the tapes resurfaced in 2008 as a live album.

Paul Simonon and Topper Headon of the Clash were fined for shooting what from a rehearsal-room roof?

Racing pigeons cost the pair a £750 fine and brought an armed anti-terrorist squad to the band's Camden base, a fiasco that inspired the song Guns on the Roof.

The Clash song The Right Profile recounts the car crash and decline of which Hollywood actor?

Montgomery Clift films are name-checked through the song, among them From Here to Eternity, which is also the title of the band's 1999 live album.

Which Beat poet performs on the Clash track Ghetto Defendant and joined the band on stage in New York?

Allen Ginsberg studied punk slang before writing his lines, and he ends the track by reciting the Heart Sutra, a Buddhist mantra.

Clash frontman Joe Strummer, whose father worked for the British foreign service, was born in which capital city?

Ankara was his birthplace, but from the age of nine Strummer boarded at a school in Surrey and rarely saw his parents for the next seven years.

Members of the Clash appear as extras billed as street scum in which Martin Scorsese film?

The King of Comedy, the dark satire starring Robert De Niro as a would-be comedian, lists Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and their manager under that name.