Black Sabbath
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Black Sabbath trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Black Sabbath formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1968 as a blues band called Polka Tulk, took their name from a Boris Karloff horror film showing across the street, and released a debut on Friday the 13th that is now generally accepted as the first heavy metal album. Fifty-seven years later the original four played one last show at Villa Park, a short walk from where they grew up. These 50 questions follow the whole story: Earth and Jethro Tull, the tritone, Paranoid written in 25 minutes, the Zurich club residency, Master of Reality and Vol. 4, Clearwell Castle and Rick Wakeman, California Jam, Ozzy's firing, Ronnie James Dio and Heaven and Hell, Ian Gillan and the Stonehenge set that Spinal Tap parodied, Tony Martin's long tenure, Dehumanizer, the 1997 reunion, 13 with Rick Rubin, The End tour, the Commonwealth Games cameo and Back to the Beginning. Easy questions stick to the hits and line-up; the hard tier asks about studios, openers and the Fairy Liquid bottle that made Tony Iommi's thimbles. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a metal night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Birmingham district did Black Sabbath form in 1968?
Aston
Aston is where all four grew up, within a few streets of each other, among factories whose heavy machinery Osbourne later likened to the thunder of the band's riffs.
Q 02What did Black Sabbath's four founders call their band first, before renaming it Earth?
Polka Tulk
Polka Tulk began as a six-piece blues band with a saxophonist and a slide guitarist; nobody is sure whether the name came off a tin of talcum powder or a clothing shop's sign.
Q 03Which band did Tony Iommi briefly leave Earth to join in 1968?
Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull kept him only long enough to mime a song on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, but he came back preaching their work ethic and had his own band rehearsing early every morning.
Q 04Black Sabbath took their name from a 1963 horror film starring whom?
Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff's film was drawing queues at the cinema near their rehearsal room, and the band reasoned that if people paid to be scared by films, they might pay to be scared by music.
Q 05The doomy main riff of the song 'Black Sabbath' is built on which musical interval?
The tritone
The tritone, long nicknamed the Devil's interval, gives the riff its dread; bassist Geezer Butler says it was inspired by Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War.
Q 06The music-shop advert that brought Black Sabbath together boasted that singer 'Ozzy Zig' had his own what?
A PA system
A PA system was the selling point of the card Osbourne pinned up; Iommi answered it and found on the doorstep a boy he remembered from school as a pest.
Q 07Roughly how long did Black Sabbath spend recording their debut album?
One day
One day: they played their live set straight through in a London studio, singer included, thought even that was generous, and left the next morning for a club date in Switzerland.
Q 08Black Sabbath's debut album reached British shops in 1970 on which ominous date?
Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th of February 1970 suited the record; the reviews were savage, Lester Bangs's among them, and the album still climbed into the British top ten.
Q 09What was Black Sabbath's first single, a cover of a song by the American band Crow?
Evil Woman
Evil Woman had been an American hit for Crow only months earlier; Black Sabbath's version, issued six weeks before their album, did not chart at all.
Q 10What was Black Sabbath's second album originally going to be called?
War Pigs
War Pigs was the planned title, after the protest song that opens the record; the label instead named the album after a filler track knocked out at the last minute.
Q 11The coughing fit that opens Black Sabbath's 'Sweet Leaf' was Tony Iommi choking on what?
A joint
A joint, handed to him by Osbourne while the tape was running: the splutter was kept as the opening of a song that is the band's love letter to marijuana.
Q 12Which song, knocked out in minutes as album filler, became Black Sabbath's biggest UK hit single?
Paranoid
Paranoid took about 25 minutes: the album was a song short, Iommi found the riff while the others were at lunch, and the throwaway reached number four in Britain.
Q 13Which 1971 album contained the band's first acoustic songs and 'Children of the Grave'?
Master of Reality
Q 21Which compilation, Black Sabbath's first, did the record companies release without the band's input?
We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll
We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll was compiled without consulting the band, who were busy fighting their old management in court; it still charted through 1976 and sold two million copies in America.
Q 22What are the two figures on the Hipgnosis sleeve of Black Sabbath's Technical Ecstasy?
Robots
Robots, passing on escalators: the designers took the album title literally, and Osbourne's verdict was that it showed two robots having sex on an escalator.
Q 23Which musician sang lead on Black Sabbath's single 'It's Alright' in place of Ozzy Osbourne?
Bill Ward
Master of Reality owes its sludgy weight to a practical fix: Iommi tuned his guitar down three semitones to spare his damaged fingertips, and Butler followed him down on bass.
Q 14What was Black Sabbath's Vol. 4 originally going to be titled?
Snowblind
Snowblind, the band's hymn to cocaine, was the title until the record company balked at so plain a drug reference; their drummer called the replacement a pretty stupid title, there being no Volumes 1 to 3.
Q 15Which sounds open Black Sabbath's debut album before a note of music is played?
Rain and a tolling bell
Rain and a tolling bell, with a roll of thunder, were almost the only effects added to an album otherwise recorded live; the storm runs for half a minute before the first riff.
Q 16Where did Tony Iommi find the riff of 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' after weeks of writer's block?
A castle dungeon
A castle dungeon: after a fruitless month in Los Angeles the band rented Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean, rehearsed below ground, frightened themselves with ghost sightings and began writing again.
Q 17Which rock keyboard star guested on Black Sabbath's 'Sabbra Cadabra'?
Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman was next door making an album with Yes and would not take a fee; he recalls finding the band slumped asleep, with Osbourne waking just long enough to approve the take.
Q 18Which 1974 American festival put Black Sabbath on a bill with Deep Purple and the Eagles?
California Jam
California Jam was staged by the ABC network, which televised parts of the show and so put Black Sabbath in front of an American audience far beyond their concert crowds.
Q 19Which notorious manager did Black Sabbath sign with in 1974?
Don Arden
Don Arden, dubbed the Al Capone of pop, took them on amid lawsuits with their old management; his daughter Sharon later married Osbourne and wrested control of the singer's career from her father.
Q 20Which band opened for Black Sabbath on the 1975 Sabotage tour?
Kiss
Kiss were the support until the tour stopped early in November 1975: Osbourne had torn a muscle in his back in a motorcycle accident.
Bill Ward, the drummer, wrote the ballad and had to be coaxed into singing it for fear of offending Osbourne, who wrote that he was more than happy to let him.
Q 24Dave Walker, who briefly replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1977, had earlier sung with which band?
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac was one of his old bands. With Black Sabbath he sang one new song on a local television show and was gone as soon as Osbourne changed his mind.
Q 25As a teenager, before Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne spent time in prison for which crime?
Burglary
Burglary: he had robbed a clothes shop and could not pay the fine, and his father refused to pay it for him, hoping that prison would teach him a lesson.
Q 26Which young American band opened Black Sabbath's 1978 Never Say Die! tour?
Van Halen
Van Halen's debut album was only months old; Tony Iommi recalled that they 'were really hot to trot, whereas we were burning out', and within a year Osbourne had been fired.
Q 27Which singer replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1979?
Ronnie James Dio
Ronnie James Dio had just been dismissed from Rainbow; his first album with Black Sabbath revived a band that many had written off after two weak records.
Q 28Which drummer joined Black Sabbath mid-tour in 1980 and stayed for Mob Rules and Live Evil?
Vinny Appice
Vinny Appice got the call when the original drummer walked out in mid-tour; he had only a few days to learn the set before his first show with them, at a stadium in Hawaii.
Q 29Which Deep Purple singer fronted Black Sabbath on Born Again (1983)?
Ian Gillan
Ian Gillan says he agreed to join during a long night's drinking with Iommi and Butler, and woke the next day with little memory of having done it.
Q 30The stage set for Black Sabbath's 1983 Born Again tour, built too big for most venues, was a replica of what?
Stonehenge
Stonehenge came out so large that many venues could not take it, and accounts differ on who botched the measurements; the makers of This Is Spinal Tap insist their own Stonehenge gag was a coincidence.