Crush 40

Crush 40's origin began with guitarist Jun Senoue and his employment with Sega. After graduating from college in 1993, Jun Senoue was employed by Sega to be a music composer for video games. His first project was creating two songs for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Later, he worked on other games such as Dark Wizard, Sonic 3D Blast (Sega Mega Drive version), Sega Rally 2, and Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition.

In 1998, Senoue contacted the singer from Hardline, Johnny Gioeli, and recorded their first song as a group, Open Your Heart. After making the track, which would later be on the video game Sonic Adventure, the two stayed in contact. Eventually from this relationship spawned a project band to make the soundtrack for another game Senoue worked on, NASCAR Arcade. The band was formed under the name "Sons of Angels", the same as a song that Senoue performed with Eric Martin on the Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition soundtrack.

The original band included Senoue as the guitarist, Gioeli singing, and Naoto Shibata and Hirotsugu Homma from Anthem playing the bass and drums, respectively. In 2000, the band released their album Thrill of the Feel through Victor Entertainment. The album contained all of the tracks which they had written for NASCAR Arcade.The band resurfaced during the development of Sonic Adventure 2. Naoto Shibata and Hirotsugu Homma could not take part because they were performing with Loudness and later Anthem, so Katsuji and Takeshi Taneda were brought in to play the songs for the game. The resulting track was "Live and Learn", the main theme of Sonic Adventure 2.

When the Norwegian band "Sons of Angels" reunited under this alias that they had before, Gioeli and Senoue decided to change their band's name to Crush 40. When Senoue was asked why he picked "Crush 40" as the name, he responded, "When we had to find another good one, we picked up the word we like..."Crush" is one of them, and Johnny added the number on it. Crush is the name of the soda too...that's my favorite!"

Two years after the release of Sonic Adventure 2, the album Crush 40, a European cover version of "Thrill of the Feel", was released by Frontiers Records. The album contained the same music as their previous album with the same racing theme of the songs written for NASCAR Arcade, but without the previous album's instrumental tracks. Senoue claimed that Crush 40 was the project of himself and Gioeli, which is why the instrumental tracks were removed. There were, however, both prior Sonic theme songs "Open Your Heart" and "Live and Learn", as well as two bonus tracks: "It Doesn't Matter" featuring vocalist Tony Harnell, and "Escape from the City" featuring Ted Poley and Tony Harnell. Senoue's rationale for including these two songs was that he wanted to introduce some of his favorite songs featuring other singers to the fans.Crush 40 has not released any albums since 2009. However, the band has performed original music for several video games. The songs the band performed for these games were released on the soundtracks of each game, under Sega's Wave Master Entertainment label.

In 2003, Sega announced the first multiplatform Sonic game, Sonic Heroes, which featured two new Crush 40 songs: the theme tune "Sonic Heroes", a "bright, melodic song", and "What I'm Made Of...", a "distinctly dark hard rock song with metal sensibilities". The music itself was also released on the Triple Threat: Sonic Heroes Vocal Trax soundtrack. In the booklet for Triple Threat: Sonic Heroes Vocal Trax, Katsuji is credited as the drummer for "Sonic Heroes", but Mark Schulman is credited as the drummer for "What I'm Made Of..."

When Sega announced Shadow the Hedgehog in 2005, Crush 40 returned to perform the game's theme song, "I Am... All of Me". There is a second song by Crush 40 in the game, the ending theme named "Never Turn Back". Both of these songs also appear on the soundtrack called Lost and Found: Shadow the Hedgehog Vocal Trax. For Crush 40's contributions to this soundtrack, the drumming duties were passed on to Toru Kawamura.

Crush 40 also made contributions to Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. The band created its own rendition of "All Hail Shadow", previously performed by Magna-Fi in the game Shadow the Hedgehog. Crush 40 also recorded a version of "His World", the main theme of Sonic the Hedgehog in 2006. The latter of these two did not appear in the game, but both of these songs are on this game's soundtrack, Sonic the Hedgehog Vocal Traxx: Several Wills. Kawamura was also the drummer for this soundtrack.

The band also contributed several of its songs, including "Live and Learn", to the video game Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The song was also featured in an episode of the Japanese version of Sonic X.

In 2008, the album True Blue: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog was released in Japan, and featured Crush 40's cover of the Sonic and the Secret Rings theme "Seven Rings in Hand", originally performed by Steve Conte. Also included on the album are Crush 40 songs "Live and Learn" (2007 Remastered Version)", "What I'm Made Of..." (2007 Remastered Version), "Sonic Heroes", two versions of "Open Your Heart", two versions of "It Doesn't Matter" (with Tony Harnell), and "Escape from the City" (with Ted Poley and Tony Harnell). The band record several songs for Sonic and the Black Knight, including the game's main theme, Knight of the Wind.

On October 12, 2008, Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli performed a live concert at the Tokyo Game Show. The songs they performed included shortened versions of "I Am... All Of Me", "His World", "Sonic Heroes", "What I'm Made of" and the full version of "Live and Learn". Crush 40 also performed a shortened version of "Knight of the Wind". A live recording of this concert has been uploaded on Youtube and is linked from the Crush 40's website.In November 18, 2009 the band released a new compilation of their best songs. The album was named "The Best of Crush 40 - Super Sonic Songs".

It has also been confirmed that Crush 40 has a new song planned exclusively for the DS version of 'Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing'.

Jun started playing the piano at 3 while living in Japan. After moving to Panama, Jun became dedicated to rock music at the age of 12. He began to teach himself to play the electric guitar at 15, and made his first original band recording at the age of 17.

In 1993, after graduating from college with a degree in economics from Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan, he joined Sega as a video game composer, doing sound work for games such as Sonic the Hedgehog 3. He is most well-known for his compositions and songs in Sonic Adventure.

Senoue moved to San Francisco and continued to compose in-game music and theme songs as sound director for Sonic Team USA games, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, featuring music contributed by his band Crush 40. Senoue also composed a Reala theme, and programmed all sound effects for Sonic Team USA's last game, Nights: Journey of Dreams.

In 2007, Jun provided three new arrangements for the Japanese console release of OutRun 2 SP, including covers of existing series tracks "Splash Wave" and "Rush a Difficulty", and an original track titled "Lift You Up!". The songs are also available on the "Outrun 20th Anniversary" box CD set.

Jun is also one of 38 composers for the Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, having contributed an arrangement of the Angel Island Zone theme from Sonic The Hedgehog 3, as well as the original versions of many Crush 40 songs such as "Live and Learn".

Recently, Jun was assigned as sound director for Sonic and the Black Knight.

In 2009 fall, Jun announced to release a new album entitled "The Works", which is a compilation album of songs he has made throughout the years. Containing only 2 Sonic related songs, it mostly features works he has provided for other games. The album was released in Oct.21, 2009.

Johnny's musical career began in the early 80s after forming the band Phaze with his older brother, Joey. The band underwent reform and he started drumming with the band Killerhit in 1983 at the age of 17. Sharing vocal duties with Joey the four-piece act hit the East Coast club circuit with an enormous amount of success, earning enough by 1987 to purchase their own lighting rig, truck and tour bus (purchased from Jimmy Buffett).

Re-locating to Hollywood, Killerhit hooked up with Poison's Bret Michaels. The singer gave them his former publicist Debra Rosner's number who instantly became the band's manager. Realizing the need for a front man, Johnny vacated the drum stool for center stage, Las Vegas native Darek Cava taking his place behind the drum kit. Soon after the band switched names to the more appropriate Brunette. The band broke The Doors and Van Halen's single-weekend attendance records on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood CA. Their sensation soon brought attention and admiration to the recording industry. They were courted by top record executives for months. The band had built a loyal world wide fan base. Differences began to develop in the Brunette camp before a recording deal could be secured, and the band decided to call it quits in 1991. He then started working with his brother Joey on songs for an album they were going to call Brothers. However, Neal Schon, Journey's guitarist (who was dating their sister at the time) met with them and asked if he could play with them, and they agreed. Then in 1992 they released their first effort, entitled "Double Eclipse," and called themselves Hardline which was moderately successful but not enough to get into the mainstream, especially considering its post-Nirvana release. After this they began writing songs for a second album but once again called it quits while recording the songs due to troubles with their manager and Neil Schon. Johnny had all but disappeared from the music scene until, in 1998, German guitarist Axel Rudi Pell found himself in need of a vocalist after the departure of Jeff Scott Soto. Axel had admired Johnny for a long time, saying he always thought Johnny's vocals would go well with his music. Axel eventually found means of contacting Johnny and flew him to Germany to record vocals for his Oceans of Time CD, which up to date has been considered as one of the best Axel Rudi Pell albums so far. He is now the permanent lead vocalist of the band and shows no signs of leaving.

He also participated in a compilation album called "Voices Of Rock - MMVII", released the 07.20.2007 where he performed the song "Phoenix Rising".

After considerable success of their debut CD, Double Eclipse, the band was dissolved for 10 years during which Johnny and his brother followed a career in internet business. After he met with further success in the band Axel Rudi Pell, Johnny and his band Hardline returned to release their second album entitled II and was released in 2002 followed by the live CD/DVD in 2003, named Live At The Gods 2002. Their third album, originally titled Just Add Water, has been renamed Leaving the End Open, was released April 17, 2009.

He has been working with video game composer and musician Jun Senoue and has delivered his vocals in the Sons Of Angels CD, Thrill Of The Feel, released in 2000 and he is currently in the band Crush 40, where has written and sung several songs in recent Sonic the Hedgehog games, such as the theme tune Sonic Heroes, a bright, melodic song and in contrast What I'm Made Of, a distinctly dark, energetic hard rock song with metal sensibilities for the final struggle of the game. He was also the vocalist for the songs Open Your Heart, the main theme of Sonic Adventure, Live and Learn, the main theme of Sonic Adventure 2, I Am... All Of Me, the main theme of Shadow the Hedgehog, and Never Turn Back, the ending theme from the same game. Additional work with Senoue is a cover of Runblebee's Seven Rings in Hand, which was featured exclusively on the currently Japan-only CD True Blue: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog. He also wrote the chorus for the Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 game theme song "His World" and recorded a version of the song with Crush 40 (featured as a bonus track on the game's official soundtrack). Because of his close ties musically to the video game series, Gioeli is often considered by fans to be the singing voice of Sonic.

Crush 40 has also be featured in a currently Japan-only CD release, True Blue: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog. It features most of Crush 40's previous contributions to the Sonic series, such as Open Your Heart, Live & Learn, What I'm Made Of..., and Sonic Heroes. Also included is an aforementioned Crush 40 remake of the theme song from Sonic and the Secret Rings entitled "Seven Rings In Hand" as well as a remix of Open Your Heart by Remix Factory's Bentley Jones (formerly Lee Brotherton).

Gioeli has been working on the soundtrack to the Sonic game: Sonic and the Black Knight. In October 2008, Gioeli and Senoue took the stage at the Tokyo Game Show to perform some of their most popular Sonic-based songs in front of a live audience for the first time. Gioeli and Senoue have since created a YouTube account and uploaded video footage of the event.

In 2009, a new Crush 40 album came out called: The Best of Crush 40 - Super Sonic Songs. This album contains their best songs, including 4 mixes of old songs and 3 new songs: A cover of Un-gravitify, a cover of Fire Woman and a new song called Is It You.