Soundgarden
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50 free Soundgarden trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Soundgarden were the first grunge band on Sub Pop and the first on a major label, years before Nevermind made Seattle a brand. They named themselves after a wind-powered sculpture by a NOAA building, wrote hits in 15/8 and 7/8 by accident, and sold 30 million records on Chris Cornell's voice and Kim Thayil's detuned riffs before breaking up in 1997, reuniting in 2010, and losing Cornell in 2017. These 50 questions trace the whole arc: the Deep Six compilation, Jonathan Poneman's $20,000 that turned Sub Pop into a real label, the SST debut Cornell called a mistake, Jason Everman's short stay, the MTV ban on Jesus Christ Pose, opening for Guns N' Roses, Superunknown debuting at number one, the two 1995 Grammys, the Honolulu bass-throwing finale, Audioslave, Matt Cameron's years in Pearl Jam, the Guitar Hero comeback, King Animal, the Avengers song, the Nudedragons benefit and the 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with Hiro Yamamoto back on bass. Easy questions stick to the line-up and the big singles; the hard tier asks about time signatures, producers and Road Rash. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a one-line explanation. Play it solo or print it for a grunge night alongside our Nirvana and Pearl Jam quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Soundgarden formed in 1984?
Seattle
Seattle. Cornell grew up there, left school as a teenager and was working as a sous-chef at a restaurant called Ray's Boathouse before the band took off.
Q 02Chris Cornell wrote and sang the theme song for which James Bond film?
Casino Royale
Casino Royale. Cornell refused to work the film's title into the lyrics, so You Know My Name became the first Bond theme since Octopussy in 1983 not to share its name with the movie.
Q 03Who played lead guitar in Soundgarden?
Kim Thayil
Kim Thayil. He learned drop-D tuning from the Melvins' Buzz Osborne during a chat about Black Sabbath, showed it to his bandmates, and the heavier sound became a staple of the band's riffs.
Q 04Which instrument did Chris Cornell play while singing in Soundgarden's first year?
Drums
Drums. In 1985 his friend Scott Sundquist took over the kit so that Cornell could step out front and concentrate on singing.
Q 05Who was Soundgarden's drummer from 1986 onward?
Matt Cameron
Matt Cameron. As a 15-year-old he sang Puberty Love, the song that is blasted at the monsters to finish them off in the 1978 cult film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
Q 06Who was Soundgarden's original bassist?
Hiro Yamamoto
Hiro Yamamoto. He quit in 1989 and went back to college, and the punk bassist ended up as chief of organic chemistry at a lab that tests drinking water.
Q 07Which former Nirvana member briefly played bass for Soundgarden in 1989–90?
Jason Everman
Jason Everman. A few years after leaving both bands he gave up music, enlisted in the US Army in 1994 and went on to serve with the Rangers and Special Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Q 08Who became Soundgarden's bassist in 1990 for the classic line-up?
Ben Shepherd
Ben Shepherd. By his own telling, Nirvana first met their early drummer, who was then playing in Shepherd's band, through him.
Q 09The lakeside sculpture A Sound Garden, which gave Soundgarden its name, makes its sounds using what?
The wind
The wind. Each steel tower holds an organ pipe on a weather vane that swings into the breeze, and because it stands on a federal NOAA campus, visitors have had to show photo ID to see it.
Q 10Which 1986 compilation carried Soundgarden's first recordings?
Deep Six
Deep Six. The first release on the tiny local C/Z label, it also carried Green River and the Melvins, and a major label reissued it in 1994, after grunge had gone mainstream.
Q 11Which hometown label released Soundgarden's first single and EP in 1987?
Sub Pop
Sub Pop. Radio DJ Jonathan Poneman was so struck by an early Soundgarden club show that he put up his own money and went into partnership with founder Bruce Pavitt to get their records out.
Q 12What was Soundgarden's first single, released in 1987?
Hunted Down
Hunted Down. The band's guitarist recalled that their label made it the first song on its telephone hold tape, so anyone left waiting on the line to the office heard it.
Q 13Who managed Soundgarden from 1986 and later married Cornell?
Susan Silver
Susan Silver. She also managed Alice in Chains, whose guitarist Jerry Cantrell wrote their hit Rooster while staying in a little spare room at her and Cornell's house.
Q 21In which 1992 film did Soundgarden perform Birth Ritual?
Singles
Singles. The song's heavy riff came from the drummer, and it had missed the band's previous album only because its chorus was not finished in time.
Q 22Which Soundgarden album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in March 1994?
Superunknown
Superunknown. Getting there wore the band down: Cornell said producer Michael Beinhorn fussed over sounds for so long that by the time they could record a song they were sick of playing it.
Q 23Which Soundgarden single won the 1995 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance?
Black Hole Sun
Black Hole Sun. The title was a phrase Cornell thought he heard a TV news anchor say; he liked the mishearing so much that he wrote the song in his head on the drive home from a studio.
Q 14Which independent label released Soundgarden's debut album, Ultramega OK, in 1988?
SST
SST. Unhappy with the final mix, the band meant to redo it straight away, but a major-label deal swept them along and the remixed version did not appear until a 2017 reissue.
Q 15Which major label made Soundgarden the first grunge band with a major deal?
A&M
A&M. Its interest followed a radio DJ's cassette of unsigned local acts, titled Bands That Will Make Money, which was sent round the record companies and set labels calling.
Q 16Soundgarden's first music video was for which song from their debut album, Ultramega OK?
Flower
Flower. On the recording the guitarist laid his guitar beside the amp and blew across the strings in time with the beat, getting a hum he likened to a sitar.
Q 17Which 1989 album was Soundgarden's major-label debut and their first to reach the Billboard 200?
Louder Than Love
Louder Than Love. Its crudest song, Big Dumb Sex, was meant as a send-up of sex-obsessed rock, though the band's own bassist hated it and took it for the real thing.
Q 18MTV refused to air the video for which Soundgarden song from Badmotorfinger in 1991?
Jesus Christ Pose
Jesus Christ Pose. The guitarist said the channel disliked its image of a girl on a cross; the song itself takes aim at public figures who strike a martyr's pose.
Q 19Which band took Soundgarden out as its opening act on an arena tour starting in December 1991?
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses. Two years later the headliners put part of Soundgarden's Big Dumb Sex on their own covers album, in a medley with a T. Rex song.
Q 20What is notable about the title of Soundgarden's 1992 EP Satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas?
It is a palindrome
It is a palindrome. Spaced out, it reads 'Satan oscillate my metallic sonatas' in both directions; the EP came as a bonus disc with Badmotorfinger, issued to mark the band's Lollapalooza dates.
Q 24Which Soundgarden single won the 1995 Grammy for Best Metal Performance?
Spoonman
Spoonman. Artis the Spoonman, the street performer it is named after, plays the spoons on the track, while the band's drummer joins in on pots and pans.
Q 25Which poet's work is said to have inspired Chris Cornell's lyrics on Soundgarden's 1994 album?
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath. The lyrics dwell on depression and death, yet the band's guitarist heard the album as rejoicing in life, joking: 'Life is good, but death's gonna be even better!'
Q 26Why did Soundgarden cancel shows in late 1994?
Cornell strained his vocal cords
Cornell strained his vocal cords. Five or six shows a week had worn his voice down, and the band called off dates rather than charge fans 'to see some guy croak for two hours'.
Q 27What was Soundgarden's fifth album, released in May 1996?
Down on the Upside
Down on the Upside. The band produced it themselves, and Cornell's push away from their heavy riffing is said to have set off clashes with the guitarist; within a year of its release they had split.
Q 28Which band headlined the 1996 Lollapalooza tour, with Soundgarden also on the bill?
Metallica
Metallica. The headliners are said to have insisted on Soundgarden's place on the tour, and Soundgarden in turn pushed for the Ramones to be added to the bill.
Q 29In which city did Soundgarden's bassist storm off stage at their last show before the 1997 split?
Honolulu
Honolulu. He threw his bass in the air and stalked off on the final night of a world tour; a local reviewer hoped it was only exhaustion, but two months later the band announced its break-up.
Q 30Johnny Cash covered which Soundgarden song on his 1996 album Unchained?
Rusty Cage
Rusty Cage. Cash's country reworking sat on an album that went on to win the Grammy for Best Country Album, and Cornell dedicated the song on stage in 1997 to 'the man in black'.