The Strokes
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99 free The Strokes trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Strokes arrived in 2001 looking like they had been assembled in a Lower East Side bar in 1977, and for a while every guitar band on both sides of the Atlantic sounded like them. Brandon Flowers threw out everything The Killers had written after hearing Is This It, and Lizzy Goodman named her history of the decade's New York scene after one of their Room on Fire songs. These 99 questions follow the band from the Dwight School and a Swiss boarding school to the Mercury Lounge, the Modern Age EP that set off the biggest bidding war for a rock act in years, the basement studio where Gordon Raphael recorded the debut, the cover photo RCA swapped for a bubble-chamber image, the song pulled after September 11, the Roman Coppola videos, the Nigel Godrich sessions nobody has heard, the Drew Barrymore years, the hiatus, the secret gig as Venison, the Rick Rubin comeback that finally won a Grammy, and the 2026 tour with a stand-in guitarist. Easy questions stick to the line-up and album titles; the expert tier asks about producers, B-sides and which NME issue gave away Last Nite. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a one-line explanation. Play it solo or print it for an indie night alongside our Arctic Monkeys and Killers quizzes.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Tom Petty laughed off the news that The Strokes had borrowed his American Girl riff for which single?
Last Nite
Last Nite. The band admitted the borrowing in an interview; Petty said it made him laugh out loud and did not bother him: 'OK, good for you.'
Q 02Which Daft Punk song features Julian Casablancas of The Strokes on vocoded lead vocals?
Instant Crush
Instant Crush. Daft Punk, who called themselves the biggest fans of The Strokes, played him an unused instrumental over coffee in 2010, and he jumped on it.
Q 03Who plays drums for The Strokes?
Fabrizio Moretti
Fabrizio Moretti. He broke his hand after a Glasgow show in June 2001, just as the band was taking off, and a friend, Matt Romano, flew in to drum on the remaining dates.
Q 04The Strokes closed The New Abnormal with an ode to which New York sports team?
The Mets
The Mets. Julian Casablancas wrote it on a subway platform after watching them lose a playoff game, and kept the joke title once his drummer said the team is something you love that keeps disappointing you.
Q 05What is the name of Julian Casablancas's band outside The Strokes?
The Voidz
The Voidz. Casablancas called the band's debut, Tyranny, a 'protest record': he said corruption was king and corporations had become the new ruling body.
Q 06Which debut EP by The Strokes sparked a record-label bidding war in 2001?
The Modern Age
The Modern Age. It began as a three-song demo knocked out in three days to win the band better club gigs, and ended with major labels fighting over them.
Q 07Which label won the bidding war to sign The Strokes in 2001?
RCA
RCA. When its people visited the basement sessions for the debut, the producer recalls, they called the sound unprofessional and said he was ruining the singer's voice.
Q 08At which Manhattan school did Julian Casablancas meet two future Strokes bandmates and start playing music?
Dwight
Dwight. Casablancas says his one school trophy was for acting in a Brecht play, and he dropped out in his junior year without finishing high school.
Q 09At which Swiss boarding school did Julian Casablancas first meet Albert Hammond Jr.?
Institut Le Rosey
Institut Le Rosey. They bonded there as fellow Americans; years later Hammond bumped into him in New York and within two weeks was sharing a flat with him.
Q 10The father of Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. wrote and sang which soft-rock hit?
It Never Rains in Southern California
It Never Rains in Southern California. Albert Hammond Sr. also co-wrote The Air That I Breathe; his son once got off a transatlantic flight to find his driver singing the hit at him.
Q 11Ryan Gentles quit his job booking bands at which Manhattan club to manage The Strokes?
Mercury Lounge
Mercury Lounge. Their demo CD won him over in 2000, and he went on to run the band's affairs from an office in a vintage clothing shop in the East Village.
Q 12Who produced both Is This It and Room on Fire for The Strokes?
Gordon Raphael
Gordon Raphael. He pitched two bands after a club show in 2000, offering a cheap demo at his studio two blocks away; only The Strokes called him back.
Q 13Which British music magazine named Is This It the best album of the 2000s?
NME
NME. The weekly had made the band's three-song demo its single of the week, and one profile said The Strokes were to NME what Posh and Becks were to Heat magazine.
Q 21What was the first single from The Strokes' second album, Room on Fire?
12:51
12:51. The synth-like hook is no keyboard at all: it is Nick Valensi's guitar, which one reviewer said had come dressed as a keyboard from The Cars.
Q 22Which actress dated Strokes member Fabrizio Moretti for several years in the 2000s?
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore. They met backstage at a concert and bought an East Village apartment together, and he told one interviewer he had just sculpted her face in clay.
Q 23Which singer recorded the duet on the B-side of The Strokes' Reptilia single?
Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor. She was the band's opening act at the time, and her own album Soviet Kitsch had been co-produced by the man who made their first two records.
Q 14What does the international cover of The Strokes' Is This It show?
A gloved hand on a naked backside
A gloved hand on a naked backside. Colin Lane shot it on a Polaroid after his girlfriend stepped out of the shower, using a Chanel glove left over from a fashion shoot.
Q 15Which song did The Strokes pull from the American edition of their debut album?
New York City Cops
New York City Cops. Days after September 11 the band said it stood by the song, but that after the police's valiant response the timing was wrong; When It Started took its place.
Q 16Which director made the music videos from The Strokes' Is This It?
Roman Coppola
Roman Coppola. For Someday he staged a mock Family Feud, with The Strokes facing one of their favourite bands, Guided by Voices, as the rival team.
Q 17Which veteran band did The Strokes open for on its North American tour in 2002?
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones. The warm-up slots that October came as the band neared the end of a marathon world tour that had barely paused since Is This It came out.
Q 18Who joined The Strokes on stage as a guest at Radio City Music Hall in 2002?
Jack White
Jack White. The White Stripes were sharing the bill: the two bands had teamed up that August for a handful of shows in Detroit and New York.
Q 19Which magazine ranked Is This It the second-best album of the 2000s?
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone. Only Radiohead's Kid A ranked higher, and The Strokes' first producer recalls the magazine writing about them while they were still unsigned in America.
Q 20Which star producer began recording Room on Fire before The Strokes went back to their debut's producer?
Nigel Godrich
Nigel Godrich. Radiohead's producer says they barely got started: he and Julian Casablancas were both control freaks, each set on doing it his own way.
Q 24The Strokes took the album title The New Abnormal from a remark by which politician?
Jerry Brown
Jerry Brown. California's governor used the phrase about the 2018 wildfires, which burned through Malibu all around the studio where the band was recording.
Q 25What was the first single from The Strokes' third album, First Impressions of Earth?
Juicebox
Juicebox. The comeback single leaked online in September 2005, months early, and had to be rushed out; it opens on a twang straight out of the Peter Gunn theme.
Q 26The Strokes' First Impressions of Earth was their first album to reach number one in which country?
The UK
The UK. Made at leisure in a studio the band built for themselves in Hell's Kitchen, it went straight in at the top in January 2006, displacing Eminem's hits collection.
Q 27Who produced The Strokes' third album, First Impressions of Earth?
David Kahne
David Kahne. The producer of their first two albums gave way to an industry veteran who had worked with Paul McCartney.
Q 28The chorus of The Strokes' Bad Decisions borrows so much from which hit that Billy Idol got a writing credit?
Dancing with Myself
Dancing with Myself. The same album does it again: Eternal Summer lifts its tune from the Psychedelic Furs' The Ghost in You, and that song's writers got a credit as well.
Q 29Under what alias did The Strokes play a secret comeback show at London's Dingwalls in 2010?
Venison
Venison. It was their first gig since October 2006, an 18-song set with nothing new in it, and the crowd took to cheering the fake name back at the band.
Q 30What was the lead single from The Strokes' 2011 album Angles?
Under Cover of Darkness
Under Cover of Darkness. It introduced the first Strokes album written by all five members, a change that caused friction and dragged out the recording.