If you’re a hardcore metal fan who bought this book by accident, this quiz will probably be easy-peasy. If you’re a day-and-night listener to BBC 6 Music, it may be a little tougher. Still, hang in there: you may well know more of these than you expect. Two sections: some questions on the old wave of heavy rock bands, some on the second wave in the eighties, some on the nineties power metal scene and some on those acts making waves in the 21st century.
Answers: here
1 John Petrucci is the much-admired guitarist in which US metal band? What was the band’s 2009 album, the first to break the US Top 10?
2 Which Motörhead single and album from 1980 represent the band’s commercial peak, with the album reaching number four in the UK and the title track making the Top 20? According to the title of the band’s chart-topping 1981 live album, where could the band finally expect to get some kip?
3 Cronos, La Rage, Dante and Mantas have all been members of which metal band? What’s the title of their second album from 1982, which eventually came to be used to describe a sub-genre of more extreme metal?
4 Love, Peace and Fuck is the debut album by which experimental heavy metal band? And who formed the band, along with Doggen Foster and Kevin ‘Kevlar’ Bales from Spiritualized?
5 Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice formed four-fifths of the classic line-up of which heavy band? Who was the vocalist for their most successful period?
6 Who announced their arrival in 2001 by Sounding the Seventh Trumpet? Which former Dream Theater drummer stepped in when their drummer, Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan, died in 2009?
7 Who released the 1999 live album S&M? What does the ‘S’ signify?
8 Which American rap metal band were chosen by social media activist Jon Morter as the figurehead for a campaign to stop the winner of The X Factor from getting the UK Christmas number one in 1999? What was the song that successfully pipped Alexandra Burke to the top?
9 Which American state are Slipknot from? Each member of the band has his own mask – what does percussionist Shawn Crahan wear?
10 Which metal band is made up of Armenian Americans? What are the names of their two 2005 albums that both topped the US charts?
11 Dave Mustaine was the original guitarist with Metallica – which band did he form after leaving the group? Who replaced him in Metallica?
12 Which spandex-bedecked British rockers were behind the classic 1980 album Wheels of Steel? Which song of theirs about an appearance at the Monsters of Rock Festival, from their next album, remains their most commercially successful single?
13 Jeff Hannemann, who died in 2011, was a guitarist in which thrash metal band? What was the 1986 album, the band’s third, that broke them into rock’s top division?
14 Which power metal band was formed by Michael Weikath and Markus Grosskopf in Hamburg in 1984? What’s their classic work, released in two parts in 1986 and 1987?
15 Which thrash metal band were named after an infection particularly prevalent in cattle? Who was the band’s singer between 1984 and 1992, returning to the fold in 2010?
16 Kim McAuliffe, Kelly Johnson, Enid Williams and Denise Dufort comprised the classic line-up of the first female British heavy metal band to have mainstream success. What are they called? And what has been their most successful album, a 1981 effort whose title track reached the British Top 40?
17 ‘Cameltosis’, ‘Dead Bodies Everywhere’ and ‘Freak on a Leash’ are tracks from which Korn album, which topped the US charts and reached the British Top 10? Which other nu metal singer, the front man of Limp Bizkit, guested on the track ‘All in the Family’?
18 In January 1991, which heavy metal act did something that few other metal acts have ever done and topped the British singles chart? Taken from their album No Prayer for the Dying, which song reached the summit?
19 Rob Halford is the singer in which Birmingham metal band? What, pretty much uniquely for a metal singer, did Halford do in 1988?
20 Herzeleid, Mutter and Rosenrot are all albums by which German metal band, known for their spectacular live shows? A cover of which Depeche Mode song, sung in English, gave them one of their bigger commercial successes?
21 Who replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath for two albums from 1979? With which other seventies hard rock band was he the singer before joining Sabbath?
22 Chester Bennington, the pretty boy of nu metal, became the lead singer of which band in 1999? What’s the name of the debut album the band released the following year?
23 ‘Ain’t My Bitch’, ‘Hero of the Day’ and ‘King Nothing’ are all tracks from which Metallica album, a departure from the thrash metal style of their first five releases? Which 2003 album, released after a gap of six years, saw the band return to their harder-edged sound?
24 Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water is the title of a US- and UK-chart-topping album by which nu metal band? Who mans the turntables and arranges the samples for the band?
25 Which Zimbabwe-born producer was in no small way responsible for the rise of Def Leppard, producing their most high-profile albums and co-writing many of their hits? What was the band’s breakthrough 1983 album, their second with this producer, that saw them shift towards the radio-friendly sound that brought them enormous success?
26 Brothers Michael and Rudolf Schenker have both found fame separately as guitarists in which two metal bands?
27 What is the significance of the Starchild, the Demon, the Spaceman, the Catman, the Fox and the Wizard? What, in the same context, was The Elder?
28 Black Sabbath had two number-one albums in the UK, Paranoid in 1970 and 13 in 2013. Apart from Ozzy Osbourne, which two members of the band that played on Paranoid also played on 13?
29 Which band was formed by Dimebag Darrell Abbott and his brother Vinnie Paul in 1981? After that band broke up, the pair formed Damageplan in 2003 – why did this project come to an end?
30 Metallica’s eponymous fifth album remains their best seller. What’s the opening track? And what’s the name of the live album, released two years later, that featured new versions of many of the songs on it?