The Clash
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50 free The Clash trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Clash packed more ideas into a decade than most bands manage in a lifetime. Formed in London in 1976, Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon took punk and stretched it across reggae, rockabilly, funk and early hip hop, and they wrote songs with something to argue about. This quiz covers the albums from the 1977 debut to London Calling, Sandinista! and beyond: the hit singles and the tales behind them, the famous sleeve art, the gigs, arrests and fallings-out, and what the members did after the split. A few questions look closely at London Calling itself, from its title to the fears it sings about. It is pitched for fans and casual listeners alike. If you know the best-known singles you will get plenty right, and the explanations fill in the stories you may have missed.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Netflix series set in 1983 features the Clash hit Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Stranger Things
Stranger Things leans on a rare Clash hit sung by guitarist Mick Jones rather than frontman Joe Strummer, first released on Combat Rock in 1982.
Q 02The pink and green lettering on the Clash's London Calling cover copies which singer's debut album?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley's self-titled debut supplied the layout, with pink letters down the side and green across the bottom. Designer Ray Lowry paired it with a photo its photographer thought too blurred.
Q 03A 1991 advert for which brand sent the Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go to number one in the UK?
Levi's
Levi's used the 1982 song in a jeans commercial, and the reissue became the band's only UK number-one single, five years after they split.
Q 04Which M.I.A. hit is built around a sample from the Clash's Combat Rock track Straight to Hell?
Paper Planes
Paper Planes earned the Clash's songwriters a co-writing credit, and a second one when Jay-Z and T.I. sampled it in turn for Swagga Like Us.
Q 05The Clash's paint-spattered outfits at an early gig in August 1976 were nicknamed after which American painter?
Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock outfits were the look for an invitation-only gig at the band's Camden rehearsal studio, their first performance in the five weeks since their debut.
Q 06Rock the Casbah by the Clash echoes a real ban on Western music after which country's revolution?
Iran
Iran outlawed Western music after its revolution. The tune came from drummer Topper Headon, who recorded the drums, piano and bass himself before his bandmates arrived.
Q 07Bassist Paul Simonon named the Clash after noticing the word recurring while he was reading what?
Newspapers
Newspapers kept printing the word 'clash', Simonon said, and it replaced two short-lived names, the Weak Heartdrops and the Psychotic Negatives.
Q 08The nuclear accident alluded to in the Clash's London Calling had happened months earlier at which power plant?
Three Mile Island
Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania suffered a reactor meltdown in March 1979, and Joe Strummer worked the scare into a song full of looming disasters.
Q 09Clash bassist Paul Simonon spent two weeks in jail in 2011 after boarding an Arctic oil rig with which group?
Greenpeace
Greenpeace had Simonon aboard its ship Esperanza posing as an assistant cook, and his crewmates only learned who he was after the voyage.
Q 10Joe Strummer of the Clash took his stage name from his basic strumming of which instrument while busking?
Ukulele
Ukulele busking in the London Underground gave John Mellor his new name, replacing the earlier nickname Woody.
Q 11The Clash played their first gig in Sheffield on 4 July 1976 as the support act for which band?
Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols headlined at the Black Swan, and the Clash took the slot to get on stage before rivals the Damned, who made their own debut two days later.
Q 12The Clash's triple album Sandinista! is named after rebels who had just taken power in which country?
Nicaragua
Nicaragua's Sandinistas toppled the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the year before the album appeared, and its catalogue number, FSLN1, spells out the party's initials.
Q 13Which Clash song was added to London Calling so late that the album's first sleeves never listed it?
Train in Vain
Q 21The title of the Clash's London Calling echoes the wartime station identification of which broadcaster?
BBC World Service
BBC World Service announcers opened wartime broadcasts to occupied countries with the phrase. Joe Strummer later hosted a show named after the song on the same network.
Q 22The Clash's London Calling fades out on a Morse code signal that spells which message?
SOS
SOS closes the song as a final distress call, echoing its fear that a flooded River Thames would drown central London.
Q 23Which animal keeps wandering through the Clash's Rock the Casbah video, filmed around Austin, Texas?
Armadillo
Armadillo cameos run through the video, in which a Muslim hitchhiker and a Hasidic limo driver become friends on the road to a Clash concert.
Train in Vain was a spare track written for a cancelled NME flexi disc. The unlisted closer became the band's first US Top 40 single.
Q 14Joe Strummer and Topper Headon of the Clash were arrested in 1977 for stealing what from a Newcastle hotel?
Pillowcases
Pillowcases got the pair arrested the day after a Newcastle gig on the White Riot Tour, the same tour on which fans tore out seats at London's Rainbow Theatre.
Q 15Joe Strummer of the Clash stepped in as singer of which Celtic punk band for a 1991 tour?
The Pogues
The Pogues already knew Strummer well: he had filled in for their ailing guitarist on a 1987 tour and produced their album Hell's Ditch.
Q 16Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of the Clash reunited on a 2010 album and tour by which band?
Gorillaz
Gorillaz put the pair on the title track of Plastic Beach, their first work together in over twenty years, and then took them on the road in its live band.
Q 17Mick Jones played his last Clash show at the 1983 US Festival, bankrolled by which computer pioneer?
Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder, paid for the festival himself and lost millions on it. Before going on, the band demanded a $100,000 donation to charity.
Q 18The Clash's 2013 box set Sound System came packaged as a replica of which kind of music player?
Boombox
Boombox packaging designed by Paul Simonon held the remastered albums along with dog tags, badges, stickers and reprints of the band's old fanzine.
Q 19The Clash let the punk band Beton rework London Calling as a fundraising anthem for which country?
Ukraine
Ukraine's Beton rewrote the words weeks after Russia invaded, with the surviving members' blessing, and sales raised money for the country's defence.
Q 20Which magazine named the Clash's London Calling the best album of the 1980s, although Britain got it in 1979?
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone could count it as an Eighties record because the American release came in January 1980, a month after the British one.
Q 24Which London event, where Joe Strummer was caught up in a 1976 riot, inspired the Clash's first single?
Notting Hill Carnival
Notting Hill Carnival ended in battles between Black youths and police. Photographs of that day became the band's stage backdrop and the back cover of their debut album.
Q 25Which 1981 Clash single, inspired by New York hip hop acts, shares its title with a classic Western film?
The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven grew out of Mick Jones's passion for New York acts like the Sugarhill Gang, and Joe Strummer wrote its words on the spot in the studio.
Q 26Which song made famous by the Bobby Fuller Four did the Clash cover on their 1979 EP The Cost of Living?
I Fought the Law
I Fought the Law reached Strummer and Jones through a jukebox in a San Francisco studio, and their cover won the band its first American airplay.
Q 27Which band did Mick Jones form with a film director in 1984 after his sacking from the Clash?
Big Audio Dynamite
Big Audio Dynamite later reunited Jones with the man who sacked him: Joe Strummer co-wrote five songs on its second album and co-produced it.
Q 28Clash guitarist Mick Jones produced the 2002 debut album by which British indie band?
The Libertines
The Libertines made Up the Bracket with Jones and kept him on for their second album, and he went on to produce the debut by singer Pete Doherty's next band, Babyshambles.
Q 29Clash drummer Nicky Headon got the nickname Topper because he resembled a comic character who was what animal?
Monkey
Monkey, as in Mickey the Monkey, star of the Topper comic. Paul Simonon spotted the likeness in a drummer the band found only after trying around 200 others.
Q 30Joe Strummer of the Clash vanished in 1982, just before Combat Rock came out, and hid in which country?
France
France was not the plan: his manager staged the vanishing act to boost slow ticket sales and expected him to lie low in Texas, but Strummer disappeared for real.