Foreigner
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50 free Foreigner trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Foreigner sold tens of millions of records by pairing a British guitarist's riffs with an American singer's soaring tenor, and the group's best-known songs have never really left the radio. Behind those singles sit decades of lineup changes, studio feuds and unlikely guest stars. This quiz covers the whole story: how the group came together and found its name, the albums that dominated the late 1970s and early 1980s, the making of "I Want to Know What Love Is" and the other big ballads, the famous musicians who dropped in on sessions, and what Mick Jones and Lou Gramm did away from Foreigner. It is pitched for classic rock fans, pub quiz teams and anyone who knows the choruses by heart. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so even a wrong guess leaves you with a story to pass on.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Foreigner took the title "Double Vision" from a TV report on an injured goalie in which sport?
Hockey
Hockey gave the song its name: Lou Gramm kept a small TV in his vocal booth and heard announcers say Rangers goalie John Davidson was seeing double after a hit.
Q 02A session keyboardist joined Foreigner's album 4 believing he had been called by Mick Jones of which punk band?
The Clash
The Clash had its own Mick Jones, so the young synth player assumed the London punks wanted him and only later learned the call came from the Englishman who founded Foreigner.
Q 03Mick Jones has said Foreigner's 1979 single "Dirty White Boy" was written about which rock and roll pioneer?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley was, in Jones's words, the dirty white boy who changed the shape of music. The single reached number 12 in the US as the lead release from Head Games.
Q 04Which Olivia Newton-John hit kept Foreigner's "Waiting for a Girl Like You" at number two for nine straight weeks?
Physical
Physical held the top spot for ten weeks, and when it finally slipped, Hall & Oates jumped over Foreigner, leaving the ballad a runner-up for a tenth week.
Q 05Which singer's 2009 cover of Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" topped Brazil's airplay chart for 27 weeks?
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey recorded it for her album Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, and a place on the soundtrack of a hit Brazilian telenovela kept it at number one for half a year.
Q 06Which future Hollywood director, then making music videos, shot the clip for Foreigner's 1987 single "Say You Will"?
David Fincher
David Fincher made the clip years before directing Fight Club and The Social Network. The single was one of Foreigner's last two US top-ten hits.
Q 07Which hit-making producer, the stepson of Foreigner's Mick Jones, co-produced the band's 2009 album Can't Slow Down?
Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson grew up with Jones as his stepfather after the guitarist married his mother, Ann Dexter-Jones, and he went on to win Grammys for Rehab and Uptown Funk.
Q 08Which 1977 Foreigner hit, driven by a pounding piano riff, was the first song Mick Jones wrote on piano?
Cold as Ice
Cold as Ice was a late replacement for a rejected track, and its vocals were finished in an all-night session while a blizzard buried the city outside.
Q 09Which Foreigner song follows a fan shut out of a sold-out concert who buys a guitar and finds fame himself?
Juke Box Hero
Juke Box Hero merged two unfinished ideas, one from Mick Jones and one from Lou Gramm, who later borrowed the title for his autobiography.
Q 10Foreigner's Mick Jones played "I Want to Know What Love Is" at a 2007 London tribute headlined by which reunited band?
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin reunited for one night to honour label founder Ahmet Ertegun, with Jason Bonham, Foreigner's drummer in those years, filling his late father's seat.
Q 11Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" ended the US number-one run of which Madonna hit in February 1985?
Like a Virgin
Like a Virgin had ruled the US chart since late December when the ballad displaced it, giving Foreigner its only American number-one single.
Q 12Which charity supergroup did Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" knock off the UK number-one spot in 1985?
Band Aid
Band Aid had held the top spot for five weeks over the holidays before the ballad took over in mid-January and stayed for three weeks.
Q 13Which gospel group sang the soaring backing vocals on Foreigner's 1984 ballad "I Want to Know What Love Is"?
New Jersey Mass Choir
Q 21Foreigner's Mick Jones produced Storm Front, a chart-topping 1989 album, for which singing pianist?
Billy Joel
Billy Joel got his third US number-one album from the partnership, along with the rapid-fire history lesson of We Didn't Start the Fire.
Q 22Mick Jones of Foreigner co-produced 5150, the first album which hard-rock band made with singer Sammy Hagar?
Van Halen
Van Halen scored its first US number-one album with the record, which introduced a new frontman after David Lee Roth's exit.
Q 23Mick Jones played acoustic guitar on Dark Horse, a 1974 solo album by which former Beatle, before forming Foreigner?
Harrison
Harrison's guest list for the album also included Gary Wright, the keyboardist Jones had played beside in two earlier bands.
New Jersey Mass Choir members also appear in the video, and the group soon released its own version of the song, which reached the R&B singles chart.
Q 14Which Broadway star of Dreamgirls sang backing vocals on Foreigner's 1984 ballad "I Want to Know What Love Is"?
Jennifer Holliday
Jennifer Holliday, who originated Effie White in the 1981 musical and won a Grammy for its showstopper, added her voice alongside the gospel singers.
Q 15Which 1984 Foreigner album, the band's only UK chart-topper, opened its campaign with "I Want to Know What Love Is"?
Agent Provocateur
Agent Provocateur took nine months to record after its first producer walked out, and it arrived more than three years after the band's previous studio album.
Q 16Foreigner's Mick Jones wrote a new bridge for which Australian singer's cover of "I Want to Know What Love Is"?
Tina Arena
Tina Arena recorded it for her album In Deep with Jones himself producing, and the single went gold in France.
Q 17The 1981 release of Foreigner's album 4 came just weeks before the launch of which cable channel?
MTV
MTV went on air that August, a month after the album appeared, and the record went on to spend ten weeks at number one in the US.
Q 18Which 1978 Foreigner hit, a US top-three single, later became the theme song of the comedy series Tacoma FD?
Hot Blooded
Hot Blooded began as one of many riffs Mick Jones was trying out at his apartment, until Lou Gramm stopped him and started singing along.
Q 19In which city did Mick Jones form Foreigner in 1976, after the collapse of his previous band left him stranded there?
New York
New York became home base when manager Bud Prager lent the English guitarist rehearsal space near his office, where the six-piece took shape.
Q 20Which soul saxophonist, in town for a gig, recorded the famous solo on Foreigner's 1981 hit "Urgent"?
Junior Walker
Junior Walker, the voice and sax behind the Motown hit Shotgun, happened to be performing nearby during the sessions and later recreated the solo on stage as the band's guest.
Q 24Foreigner's Mick Jones co-wrote "Bad Love", from the 1989 album Journeyman, with which English guitar great?
Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton won the Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance with the song, which Jones helped him tidy up from ideas he already had.
Q 25Mick Jones and Lou Gramm patched up Foreigner while confined to a hotel by a curfew during which city's riots?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles was under a dusk-to-dawn curfew, so the estranged pair sat in the Sunset Marquis with armed guards on the roof and agreed to work together again.
Q 26Foreigner recorded the album 4 at Electric Lady, the studio commissioned in 1968 by which guitar legend?
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix spent only about ten weeks recording there before his death, yet the studio went on to host decades of hit albums.
Q 27Which band, known for "Come Sail Away", toured with Foreigner in 2010, 2014 and 2024?
Styx
Styx had already shared a 2007 tour with Foreigner, and the pairing became a regular fixture, with guests such as Kansas and Don Felder joining the bill.
Q 28Foreigner's single "Double Vision" stalled at number two in 1978 behind "MacArthur Park", sung by which disco star?
Donna Summer
Donna Summer's disco remake of a Richard Harris ballad kept the rocker in second place for two weeks, Foreigner's highest chart position to that point.
Q 29Foreigner's "Head Games" plays as Johnny Lawrence drives and reminisces in the first episode of which streaming series?
Cobra Kai
Cobra Kai opens with the washed-up former bully of The Karate Kid, and the 1979 track scores his drunken drive down memory lane.
Q 30Foreigner co-founder Ian McDonald had earlier helped found which progressive rock band, playing on its 1969 debut album?
King Crimson
King Crimson's first album leaned on McDonald's Mellotron and woodwinds, and it is often credited with launching the progressive rock era.