80s Hair Band Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
99 free 80s Hair Band trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free 80s Hair Band trivia questions with answers. Hairspray, spandex, power ballads and Sunset Strip club nights: this quiz covers the whole glam metal decade. Fifty questions run from the first metal album to top the Billboard chart through Poison, Def Leppard, Van Halen, Twisted Sister, Whitesnake, Ratt, Dokken, Cinderella, Skid Row, Warrant, Winger, Great White, W.A.S.P., Europe and Guns N' Roses, plus the clubs, the videos, the PMRC hearing and the Nirvana album that ended the party. Easy questions ask which single gave Van Halen its only Hot 100 No. 1 and which band Nevermind knocked off the top; the hard ones want the club Great White used to be called, the guitarist Skid Row paid for their name, and the country where Dokken first released their debut. Made for anyone who still knows every word of a Bon Jovi chorus and can argue about whether Winger deserved the Beavis and Butt-Head treatment. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the bands, albums, songs and venues, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which band recorded Metal Health (1983), the first heavy metal album to top the Billboard 200?
Quiet Riot
Quiet Riot: its cover single's climb to No. 5 helped carry the album past The Police's Synchronicity to No. 1 in November 1983.
Q 02Which English group originally recorded 'Cum On Feel the Noize', a 1973 UK No.1 covered into a US hit in 1983?
Slade
Slade: their original stalled at No. 98 in America, while the 1983 cover climbed all the way to No. 5 on the Hot 100.
Q 03Before moving to Los Angeles, Poison started out in Mechanicsburg, a town in which US state?
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania: the band, first called Paris, had a local following there but saw no bigger break coming, so it headed west.
Q 04Which future Guns N' Roses guitarist auditioned for Poison but lost the lead guitar spot to C.C. DeVille?
Slash
Slash: the job went to New Yorker DeVille, who brought along his own song 'Talk Dirty to Me', which became a Poison hit.
Q 05Which Poison ballad did Bret Michaels write in a Dallas laundromat after phoning his girlfriend?
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Every Rose Has Its Thorn: on the call he heard a man's voice in the background, and the song went on to top the Hot 100.
Q 06Def Leppard formed in which English city?
Sheffield
Sheffield: Joe Elliott met the band's guitarist after missing his bus home, offered to join on guitar, and became the singer instead.
Q 07Def Leppard's 'Pour Some Sugar on Me' stalled at No. 2, but which Hysteria single became their only US No. 1?
Love Bites
Love Bites: producer Mutt Lange first brought it to the band as a country-style ballad.
Q 08Where was the August 1986 Monsters of Rock festival, one-armed drummer Rick Allen's first major concert since his accident?
Castle Donington
Castle Donington: Allen had lost his left arm in a car crash on New Year's Eve 1984, and he played an electronic kit with extra foot pedals.
Q 09Which keyboard-driven 1984 single gave Van Halen its only Billboard Hot 100 No. 1?
Jump
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.
Q 10Van Halen's album 1984 peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, held off the top by which record?
Thriller
Thriller: the album holding Van Halen at No. 2 carried Eddie Van Halen's own guitar solo, on 'Beat It'.
Q 11Which former Montrose singer replaced David Lee Roth as Van Halen's frontman in 1985?
Sammy Hagar
Sammy Hagar: Eddie Van Halen found him through a car mechanic, who suggested that one of his customers would be ideal for the job.
Q 12Before becoming Van Halen, the Van Halen brothers' band called itself Genesis and then which name?
Mammoth
Mammoth: as boys Eddie started on drums and Alex on guitar, until Eddie told his brother to take the kit and he would play guitar.
Q 13Which 1984 single was Twisted Sister's only Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100?
We're Not Gonna Take It
We're Not Gonna Take It: its melody draws on the Christmas carol 'O Come, All Ye Faithful'.
Q 21Dokken recorded its debut album, Breaking the Chains, in 1981 in which country?
Germany
Germany: the album first came out as a Don Dokken solo album, and was only later reissued under the band's name.
Q 22The band Europe, of 'The Final Countdown' fame, comes from which country?
Sweden
Sweden: the band's first two albums did well only at home, until a 1985 deal with Epic Records took them worldwide.
Q 23Joey Tempest's lyrics for 'The Final Countdown' were inspired by which David Bowie song?
Space Oddity
Space Oddity: Tempest wrote the song as a grand opener for concerts, and the band never expected it to become a hit.
Q 14Which Twisted Sister frontman testified against the PMRC's warning labels at a 1985 Senate hearing?
Dee Snider
Dee Snider: he told senators that 'Under the Blade' was about the fear of surgery, and that any sadomasochism in it was in Tipper Gore's mind.
Q 15Twisted Sister made its name in Long Island clubs, but its roots were in Ho-Ho-Kus, in which state?
New Jersey
New Jersey: American labels kept refusing to sign the band, so its first record deal came in Britain instead.
Q 16On which 1982 Whitesnake album did 'Here I Go Again' first appear?
Saints & Sinners
Saints & Sinners: the original only reached No. 34 in the UK and was not released as a US single, but the 1987 re-recording went to No. 1 in America.
Q 17Which band did David Coverdale quit in 1976, before going on to form Whitesnake?
Deep Purple
Deep Purple: Coverdale had joined them in 1973 as an unknown, going straight from selling clothes in a North Yorkshire boutique to fronting the band.
Q 18Which model on the cover of Ratt's 1984 debut Out of the Cellar went on to star in Whitesnake's 1987 videos?
Tawny Kitaen
Tawny Kitaen: she was dating Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby when she posed for the band, and she married Whitesnake's David Coverdale in 1989.
Q 19Which veteran comedian appeared in drag in Ratt's 1984 'Round and Round' video?
Milton Berle
Milton Berle: his nephew Marshall Berle managed Ratt and got the TV legend into the video, where he played both the head of the house and a matron.
Q 20Dokken's 1987 single 'Dream Warriors' was recorded for the soundtrack of which horror sequel?
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3
The video had the band interacting with the film's characters, and the single reached No. 22.
Q 24Future W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless briefly played guitar for which glam act on a 1975 Florida tour?
New York Dolls
New York Dolls: after the tour he went to Los Angeles with Dolls bassist Arthur Kane and helped start the Killer Kane Band.
Q 25Which W.A.S.P. guitarist is interviewed drunk in a pool, mother beside him, in The Decline of Western Civilization II?
Chris Holmes
Chris Holmes: he insists the scene wasn't faked, though director Penelope Spheeris later said he had been refilling the vodka bottle with pool water.
Q 26Great White's biggest hit, 'Once Bitten, Twice Shy', was a cover of a UK single by which artist?
Ian Hunter
Ian Hunter: Great White had already called their 1987 album Once Bitten, and they titled the follow-up ...Twice Shy and put the cover on it.
Q 27Before it became Great White, the band performed under which name?
Dante Fox
Dante Fox: after its 1984 debut on EMI, the renamed band had to release its next album independently, until Capitol signed it and reissued the record.
Q 28Which 1991 Skid Row album was the first to debut at No. 1 after Billboard began using SoundScan sales data?
Slave to the Grind
Slave to the Grind: SoundScan's point-of-sale counts made No. 1 debuts common, where before 1991 only a handful of albums had managed one.
Q 29Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, raised in Peterborough, Ontario, was born in which country?
The Bahamas
The Bahamas: at 18 he was heard singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss's wedding, and that led to him joining Skid Row in 1987.
Q 30Skid Row's management reportedly paid $35,000 to which guitarist for the rights to the band name?
Gary Moore
Gary Moore: the name belonged to his 1960s Irish band Skid Row, where he had played alongside a young Phil Lynott before Thin Lizzy.