Brand New
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40 free Brand New trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Brand New started out in 2000 as one more Long Island pop-punk band and then spent years refusing to stay in that box. Each record sounded unlike the one before it, the interviews dried up, the gaps between releases grew, and the following only became more devoted. This quiz covers the whole story: the early scene rivalry, the origins of long song titles such as "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't" and "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades", the leaked demos, the album covers, the tours and the famous fans. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave knowing exactly where that Tommy Gun title came from. It is written for fans who know Deja Entendu and The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me inside out, with enough gentle openers for anyone who mostly knows the singles.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Brand New's "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't" takes its title from which family film sequel?
Home Alone 2
Home Alone 2 supplied the line, one of several film nods among the song titles on the album Deja Entendu. Billboard later ranked the track among the best non-single deep cuts of 2003.
Q 02Before forming Brand New, Jesse Lacey was the founding bassist of which other Long Island band?
Taking Back Sunday
Taking Back Sunday lost Lacey after a falling-out with a bandmate, and the two groups went on to trade barbs in songs and on rival T-shirts.
Q 03Which Brand New album, surprise-released in 2017 after eight years away, became the band's first US number one?
Science Fiction
Science Fiction first reached fans as an untitled, numbered CD holding the whole album as a single long track. A week after topping the chart it sank to No. 97, then the steepest drop from the top spot on record.
Q 04Brand New's second album Deja Entendu, a wry comment on originality, has a French title that translates as what?
Already heard
Already heard was a tongue-in-cheek shrug at critics: Lacey reasoned that every record gets called derivative, so the title simply agrees in advance.
Q 05Jesse Lacey taped a greeting to his guitar for Brand New's 2003 live television debut, saluting which singer?
Morrissey
Morrissey, nicknamed Moz, fronted The Smiths, a band Lacey said he was obsessed with while making Deja Entendu. The taped greeting, "Hi Moz", came on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in October 2003.
Q 06After Brand New's third album in 2006, critics began calling the group an American version of which English band?
Radiohead
Radiohead became the standard comparison once Brand New turned experimental and press-shy, though Lacey called the tag unfair to the English band and a source of pressure.
Q 07Which English actor is named in the title of the only single from Brand New's debut album Your Favorite Weapon?
Jude Law
Jude Law shares the title with a semester abroad because Lacey wrote the song about an ex-girlfriend who got him into the actor and all things English.
Q 08Which wild animal stares into the camera on the cover of Brand New's 2009 album Daisy, shot at a wedding party?
A fox
A fox stopped and looked straight down photographer Peter Sutherland's lens in a friend's garden. Lacey said the picture suited a theme of darkness and nature that had crept into the songs.
Q 09Brand New sold a T-shirt for charity in 2015 after which notorious businessman was pictured wearing it?
Martin Shkreli
Martin Shkreli, infamous for hiking the price of a medicine, turned up online in the shirt, so the band put it on sale and gave every cent to a health center specializing in HIV/AIDS care.
Q 10Which pop singer sampled a leaked Brand New demo on a 2020 album and credits Jesse Lacey for her detailed writing?
Halsey
Halsey built "Alanis' Interlude" on the demo of "(Fork and Knife)", which earned the whole of Brand New a songwriting credit on her album Manic.
Q 11Brand New supported which pop-punk band, one Jesse Lacey avoided hearing while recording, on a 2004 tour of Australia?
Blink-182
Blink-182 were kept off Lacey's stereo during the sessions for fear his own group would end up sounding like them. Two months after Australia, Brand New toured Britain's big halls with Incubus.
Q 12Brand New played its first-ever show at what kind of venue in Garden City, New York?
A bowling alley
A bowling alley hosted the debut, with Brand New opening for local hardcore heroes Silent Majority. A label signed the group just after its second show.
Q 13In 2015 Brand New officially released its bootlegged 2006 demos, first on which retro format in limited-edition red?
Cassette tape
Q 21Brand New's Jesse Lacey fell out with which childhood friend and guitarist, inspiring bitter songs by both men's bands?
John Nolan
John Nolan had known Lacey since fourth grade and taught him guitar in high school. He later wrote an apology song with his new project Straylight Run, and the pair made peace.
Q 22Which singer-songwriter was the first act signed to Brand New's own label and joined the band's 2017 tour on guitar?
Kevin Devine
Kevin Devine saw his album Put Your Ghost to Rest reissued as the first release on Procrastinate! Music Traitors in 2008. Lacey later returned the favor by producing Devine's album Bubblegum.
Q 23Which producer, a friend of Brand New, made the debut Your Favorite Weapon and returned for three later albums?
Cassette tape was the first official format for Leaked Demos 2006, nearly ten years after the unfinished songs escaped online and pushed the band to write a different album.
Q 14Brand New's The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me asked fans to mail the band what for its lyrics?
One dollar
One dollar bought a lyric booklet, but the band took nine years to deliver: the booklets, titled Pogolith 000, finally went out to fans in 2015.
Q 15Which Brand New song, performed on both Conan and Letterman in 2007, became the band's biggest alternative radio hit?
Jesus Christ
"Jesus Christ" is a conversation about doubt and the afterlife, shaped by Lacey's religious upbringing. Those two late-night spots were the only promotional appearances the band made for the album.
Q 16What lone figure appears on the cover of Brand New's Deja Entendu, designed by two members of the band Demon Hunter?
An astronaut
An astronaut is the only figure on the sleeve, which NME took as a statement of isolation. Designer Don Clark later called his own light and shadow work clunky, though the image became iconic.
Q 17Brand New's single "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades" borrows its title from a line in which school-set comedy film?
Rushmore
Rushmore gives the line to its teenage hero Max Fischer, who is trimming a Latin phrase about worldly glory passing. Director Marc Webb is credited with the song's video idea, Lacey as a human voodoo doll.
Q 18Which Brand New member took on a far larger share of the lyric writing for the 2009 album Daisy?
Vincent Accardi
Vincent Accardi, the lead guitarist, also wrote most of the music on Daisy, and later penned "Same Logic/Teeth", which Lacey has named as his favorite Brand New song.
Q 19Critic Steven Hyden called Brand New's 2017 farewell-styled album the emo equivalent of which Beatles record?
Abbey Road
Abbey Road was the last album the Beatles recorded, and Brand New's fifth arrived amid the band's own hints that it would split in 2018.
Q 20Brand New's "Sowing Season" takes its title from a story written by a character in a book by which author?
Stephen King
Stephen King's Secret Window, Secret Garden features a writer whose short story shares the song's name. The lyrics also adapt a Rudyard Kipling poem that hung on the wall of Lacey's father's house.
Mike Sapone
Mike Sapone was, in Lacey's words, more like a fifth or sixth bandmember. The group began its third album with Dennis Herring in Mississippi before retreating to Sapone's studio near their houses.
Q 24Brand New co-headlined a 2016 tour that reached Madison Square Garden with which indie rock band and longtime influence?
Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse were an influence from early on: Alternative Press recalled the lead guitarist playing their song "3rd Planet" before an August 2001 show, before Brand New had even released an album.
Q 25The title of Brand New's The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me came from a conversation about which outsider musician?
Daniel Johnston
Daniel Johnston, a cult songwriter who lived with bipolar disorder, was the subject of a chat between Lacey and a friend that produced the phrase. Lacey told the story to Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1.
Q 26Brand New's Deja Entendu opens with "Tautou", a song named after the star of which French film?
Amélie
Amélie starred Audrey Tautou as its lead, and it is one of several movie references tucked into the album's song titles.
Q 27Which Brand New song about a feud between former friends appeared on the debut album Your Favorite Weapon?
Seventy Times 7
"Seventy Times 7" points to the Gospel of Matthew, where that is how often a person should forgive. The rival band answered with a song of its own that quotes the lyrics in reply.
Q 28Which Brand New song retells the 1951 wreck of a fishing boat off Montauk Point that killed 45 people?
Play Crack the Sky
"Play Crack the Sky" recounts the sinking of the FV Pelican within a mile of the lighthouse. Lacey, a keen surfer and sailor, said it touches parts of his life he rarely talks about.
Q 29Which independent label signed Brand New just after the band's second-ever show and released its first two albums?
Triple Crown
Triple Crown got the band only because Warner Bros. passed, even after Lacey wrote a would-be single on the spot at the major's office to win a deal.
Q 30Brand New signed with DreamWorks Records after a bidding war, before DreamWorks was absorbed into which major label?
Interscope
Interscope ended up releasing two Brand New albums, and Lacey said of the second that it seemed more interesting to put a very uncommercial record out on a very commercial label.