Joan Jett
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50 free Joan Jett trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Joan Jett was a teenager when she helped start the Runaways, and she has barely put her guitar down since. When no record company would release her first solo album she pressed it herself, then went on to top the charts, fill arenas and earn a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This quiz follows her full story. There are questions on I Love Rock 'n' Roll, Bad Reputation and the other songs everyone knows, on where those songs came from and where they turned up later, and on the bandmates, producers and famous admirers she met along the way. Her film and television roles, her causes and her life away from the stage are here too. It is pitched for casual listeners as much as lifelong fans. If you can sing along to the big singles you will get plenty right, and every explanation adds a story you may not have heard.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which British band first recorded I Love Rock 'n' Roll in 1975, before Joan Jett's hit?
Arrows
Arrows had their own weekly ITV series, which is where Jett first heard the song while touring England with the Runaways in 1976.
Q 02Which Twilight star played Joan Jett in The Runaways, the 2010 film about her teenage band?
Kristen Stewart
Kristen Stewart met Jett in early 2009 to prepare for the part, and Jett was an executive producer of the film.
Q 03Which short-lived 1999 high school series used Joan Jett's Bad Reputation as its opening theme?
Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks opened with the song, which also plays over the first scene of the 1999 teen film 10 Things I Hate About You.
Q 04Which NFL broadcast reworked Joan Jett's I Hate Myself for Loving You into its opening theme from 2006?
Sunday Night Football
Sunday Night Football retitled it Waiting All Day for Sunday Night, with new words sung first by Pink, then Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood.
Q 05A 2019 UK Christmas number one by LadBaby reworked Joan Jett's signature hit as a tribute to which snack?
Sausage rolls
Sausage rolls starred in LadBaby's charity single, whose profits went to the Trussell Trust, and it gave him a second Christmas chart-topper in a row.
Q 06Which airline christened an Airbus A330 with a punning one-T spelling of Joan Jett's name in 2024?
Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Atlantic gave the name Joan Jet to an Airbus A330-900 registered G-VRIF, dropping one letter so the aircraft itself became the pun.
Q 07Joan Jett got her first guitar at 13 but quit lessons because the teacher kept pushing which music?
Folk songs
Folk songs were not what she had in mind, and a family move to the Los Angeles area soon put her within reach of the Sunset Strip glam rock scene she loved.
Q 08Which 1980s teen idol played Joan Jett's brother and bandmate in the 1987 rock drama Light of Day?
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox took the part as his first real attempt at a serious role, and the two play siblings in a Cleveland rock band called the Barbusters.
Q 09Which fighter used Joan Jett's Bad Reputation as her entrance music in both the UFC and WWE?
Ronda Rousey
Ronda Rousey made the song her entrance music, and Jett played it live as she walked out at WrestleMania 35, the first WrestleMania with a women's main event.
Q 10Which band's surviving members did Joan Jett front at their 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction?
Nirvana
Nirvana had Jett sing Smells Like Teen Spirit in Kurt Cobain's place, and she joined them again later that night for a surprise club show in Brooklyn.
Q 11Which 1960s hitmaker co-wrote and first recorded Crimson and Clover, later a top ten cover for Joan Jett?
Tommy James
Tommy James took it to number one in the US with his band the Shondells in February 1969, and Jett's 1982 single climbed to number seven.
Q 12Which pop star covered I Love Rock 'n' Roll after singing it in a karaoke scene in her film Crossroads?
Britney Spears
Britney Spears released her version as a single in 2002, then left it alone for 14 years until she revived it for her Las Vegas residency.
Q 13Which parody artist turned Joan Jett's I Love Rock 'n' Roll into a 1983 song about ice cream?
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Q 21Which 1970s power-pop frontman sold Joan Jett the white guitar she played on her early hits?
Eric Carmen
Eric Carmen had played it on the Raspberries' hit Go All the Way, and Jett later took the guitar off the road for fear someone would steal or break it.
Q 22Which producer co-founded Blackheart Records with Joan Jett, reportedly using his daughter's college savings?
Kenny Laguna
Kenny Laguna and Jett put her debut out themselves after 23 major labels rejected it, and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with her band in 2015.
Q 23Members of which British punk band backed Joan Jett on her first recording of I Love Rock 'n' Roll in 1979?
Sex Pistols
"Weird Al" Yankovic called it I Love Rocky Road, and the ice cream in the video was really mashed potatoes, because the real thing would melt under the stage lights.
Q 14Which Runaways song, co-written by Joan Jett, plays in the 2014 Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy?
Cherry Bomb
Cherry Bomb, by Cherie Currie's account, was written in a hurry just so she had something to audition with, because the band could not play the song she had picked.
Q 15In which country were Joan Jett's Runaways a sensation, with sold-out 1977 shows and a gold live album?
Japan
Japan gave the band its own TV special during that 1977 visit, a level of fame the Runaways never reached at home in the United States.
Q 16Which famous doll line added a Joan Jett figure in 2009, made with her name and likeness?
Barbie
Barbie maker Mattel released the doll on November 19, 2009, and Jett gave permission for her name and likeness to be used.
Q 17Which animal rights organization has Joan Jett, a vegetarian since the late 1980s, long supported?
PETA
PETA once teamed up with a Los Angeles pizza shop to sell a heart-shaped Blackheart pizza for Valentine's Day, named for her band.
Q 18Which former child star played Runaways singer Cherie Currie in the 2010 film about Joan Jett's first band?
Dakota Fanning
Dakota Fanning had Currie's own words to work from, because the film is based on the singer's memoir, Neon Angel.
Q 19Which rock star declined to act in Light of Day but wrote the title song that Joan Jett performed?
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen was sent the script under its working title, Born in the USA; he passed on the role but kept that title for a song of his own.
Q 20Which lightweight Gibson model has been Joan Jett's signature guitar on stage and record since 1977?
Melody Maker
The Melody Maker replaced a heavy Les Paul that was hurting her shoulder as she jumped around on stage, and in 2008 Gibson began selling a Joan Jett signature version.
Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook cut three songs with her in England, and that early take later surfaced on her 1993 compilation Flashback.
Q 24Which hard rock band's Dirty Deeds did Joan Jett cover for her 1990 album The Hit List?
AC/DC
AC/DC first released the song in 1976, and Jett's take was a single from her first album made up entirely of other artists' songs.
Q 25Which former Runaways member went solo and scored a top ten hit duetting with Ozzy Osbourne?
Lita Ford
Lita Ford reached number eight in the US with Close My Eyes Forever in 1989, after signing with Sharon Osbourne's management company.
Q 26In which state was Joan Jett born in 1958, before family moves to Maryland and then California?
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is where she was born Joan Marie Larkin, in the Philadelphia suburb of Wynnewood; she chose Jett later because it sounded more like a rock star.
Q 27Joan Jett played Betsy Neal in the 2014 Lifetime thriller Big Driver, adapted from which author's novella?
Stephen King
Stephen King published the story in his 2010 collection Full Dark, No Stars, and the television film put Jett on screen alongside its star, Maria Bello.
Q 28Which Baltimore Orioles great personally asked Joan Jett to sing the national anthem before a record-tying game?
Cal Ripken Jr.
Cal Ripken Jr. wanted her there the night he tied Lou Gehrig's streak of consecutive games, and Jett, a devoted Orioles fan, also sang at the final game at Memorial Stadium.
Q 29Joan Jett produced (GI), the 1979 debut and only studio album by which Los Angeles punk band?
The Germs
The Germs asked Jett to produce because she had been a friend and heroine to many of them since her days in the Runaways.
Q 30Which E Street Band member recruited Joan Jett to host a show on his Underground Garage radio channel?
Steven Van Zandt
Steven Van Zandt signed her up in 2005 for Joan Jett's Radio Revolution, a four-hour show that went out every Saturday and Sunday on Sirius.