Crush 40

This article is about a subject in the real world. Information in this article is about real-life people, companies, and objects, which do not relate to the in-universe Sonic series.

Crush 40 members Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli

Crush 40 (originally Sons of Angels) are a Japanese-American rock band who are best known for making music for the Sonic the Hedgehog game series.

Biography

Jun Senoue (the band's guitarist) was first hired by SEGA to write two songs for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. After this, he recorded more songs for other SEGA games, including songs for Sonic 3D Blast. He eventually contacted singer from Hardline, Johnny Gioeli, and recorded the song Open Your Heart, which would later be featured in Sonic Adventure. They soon released their first album, titled Crush 40.

Later in their career they hired Katsuji and Takeshi Taneda on drums and bass, respectively, and recorded Live and Learn for Sonic Adventure 2. Sonic Heroes featured two new songs by the group, the theme song, "Sonic Heroes" (a "bright, melodic song"), and "What I'm Made of..." (a "distinctly dark, hard rock song with metal sensibilities"). When Shadow the Hedgehog was released, they recorded "I Am... All of Me" and "Never Turn Back". For both these songs, Katsuji was replaced with Toru Kawamura.

File:1243563-c40sss super.jpg

Crush 40's The Best of Crush 40 - Super Sonic Song album

They also contributed to Sonic the Hedgehog in 2006, recording a cover of "All Hail Shadow", previously performed by Magna-Fi, and recorded a version of "His World", the latter only presented on the soundtrack. They covered "Seven Rings in Hand". They recorded several songs for Sonic and the Black Knight, including its main theme, "Knight of the Wind", the ending theme, "Live Life," "Through the Fire" (Played when Sonic battles a Knight of the Round Table), and "Fight the Knight", which plays the two times Sonic must fight the Black Knight in the game, as well as did their own version of the Boss Battle theme, "With Me."

Recently, some of their material have been released onto iTunes, including "The Best of Crush 40: Super Sonic Songs" and "Song of Hope", their new charity single which is dedicated to the victims of the 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami. The iTunes edition of "The Best of Crush 40: Super Sonic Songs" contains three bonus tracks, "Free", "With Me -Massive Power Mix-", and "Seven Rings in Hand".

In June 2012, three songs which were intending to be released on an EP scheduled for July 4 were leaked onto iTunes. The songs were "Sonic Youth", "One Of Those Days", and "Rise Again".

Band Members

Current Members

• Johnny Gioeli – vocals (1998-present)
• Jun Senoue – guitars (1998-present)
• Takeshi Taneda – bass (2001-present)
• Toru Kawamura – drums (2005-present)

Previous members

• Naoto Shibata – bass (1998-2001)
• Hirotsugu Homma – drums (1998-2001)
• Katsuji – drums (2001-2005)
• Mark Schulman – drums (2003)

Trivia

• At the Summer of Sonic '10, Johnny explained to Gareth Spriggs, a.k.a. Fastest Thing Alive, that he never wanted to turn 40, which is where Crush 40 came from; because he wanted to "Crush 40". The "Crush" part also came from the fact that Jun likes Crush soda.
• In a recent interview with Nintendo Power magazine, Jun has confirmed that Crush 40 songs will be coming to Rock Band Network.
• Crush 40 mentioned on their Twitter page that they did not intend to create a remix of Endless Possibility and/or Escape from the City for Sonic Generations.
• Jun Senoue said Live and Learn & Escape from the City are his favorite composed songs.
• Jun and Johnny's favorite song to perform is What I'm Made Of...