Q 01/05

In which Birmingham district did Black Sabbath form in 1968?

A) Digbeth

B) Edgbaston

C) Aston

D) Handsworth

Answer · why

C) Aston

Aston is where all four grew up, within a few streets of each other, among factories whose heavy machinery Osbourne later likened to the thunder of th...

Q 02/05

What did Black Sabbath's four founders call their band first, before renaming it Earth?

A) Polka Tulk

B) Mythology

C) Rare Breed

D) Henry's Blues

Answer · why

A) Polka Tulk

Polka Tulk began as a six-piece blues band with a saxophonist and a slide guitarist; nobody is sure whether the name came off a tin of talcum powder o...

Q 03/05

Which band did Tony Iommi briefly leave Earth to join in 1968?

A) Deep Purple

B) Traffic

C) The Move

D) Jethro Tull

Answer · why

D) Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull kept him only long enough to mime a song on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, but he came back preaching their work ethic and had h...

Q 04/05

Black Sabbath took their name from a 1963 horror film starring whom?

A) Vincent Price

B) Boris Karloff

C) Christopher Lee

D) Peter Cushing

Answer · why

B) Boris Karloff

Boris Karloff's film was drawing queues at the cinema near their rehearsal room, and the band reasoned that if people paid to be scared by films, they...

Q 05/05

The doomy main riff of the song 'Black Sabbath' is built on which musical interval?

A) The minor third

B) The tritone

C) The perfect fifth

D) The major seventh

Answer · why

B) The tritone

The tritone, long nicknamed the Devil's interval, gives the riff its dread; bassist Geezer Butler says it was inspired by Holst's Mars, the Bringer of...