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Crush 40

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Crush 40

Crush 40 are a Japanese American rock band originally known as Sons of Angels, that was made to create music for the SEGA arcade racing game NASCAR Rubbin' Racing (known as NASCAR Arcade in the Americas.) They have released two albums as of now, and are one of the more notable bands employed by Sega to play music for the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Most of their contributions are songs for the various games in this series.

The core of the group is the hard rock guitarist and video game composer Jun Senoue and singer Johnny Gioeli, who is also vocalist for the bands Hardline and Axel Rudi Pell. Jun, the guitarist of the group, has been composing themes for Sega since Sonic 3 was produced. Originally, the band contained bassist Naoto Shibata and drummer Hirotsugu Homma from the bands Loudness and Anthem, but due to commitments to these bands, they were replaced by Takeshi Taneda on bass and Katsuji on drums, who are friends of guitarist Jun Senoue.[1]

History

Beginnings at SEGA and Formation

Crush 40's beginnings start with guitarist Jun Senoue and his employment with SEGA. Once he had graduated from college in 1993, Jun Senoue got a job with SEGA as a music composer for video games. As a video game composer, his first project was creating two songs for the game Sonic the Hedgehog 3 [2] Later, he would end up working on other games such as Dark Wizard, Sonic 3D Blast (SEGA Genesis version), Sega Rally 2, and Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition.[2]

Another project of Jun's was NASCAR Arcade[2], and around the time of its, he contacted the singer from Hardline, Johnny Gioeli. Together, they recorded their very first song as a group, "Open Your Heart". Even after making that 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 NASCAR Arcade, under the name "Sons of Angels", with the band name being the exact same as a song that Jun performed with Eric Martin on the Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition soundtrack.[3]

The original band was Jun as the guitarist, Johnny singing, Hirotsugu Homma from Loudness playing the drums and Naoto Shibata, also from Loudness as their bassist. In 2000, the album "Thrill of the Feel" was published, and contained all of the tracks which they had written for NASCAR Arcade. The album received warm reviews, with its rock and roll fit for racing and soaring instrumentals coupled with Johnny's unique voice.[1]

Several Changes

When Sonic Adventure 2 was being made to commemorate Sonic's 10th anniversary, the band resurfaced. Naoto and Hiro 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. Two tracks came out on the game: "Live and Learn", the main theme of Sonic Adventure 2 and "Escape from the City", background music for the first level in the game, City Escape, with vocals by Ted Poley and Tony Harnell.[1]

However, Sons of Angels would not get to keep their name. Because the Norwegian band "Sons of Angels" reunited under this alias that they had before, the band decided to change their name to Crush 40.[4] When Jun 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!"[5]

Two years later, the album "Crush 40", a European cover version of "Sons of Angels", was released by Frontiers Records. This time, there were no instrumental tracks, but it did include both prior Sons of Angels songs from the Sonic games and two bonus tracks: "It Doesn't Matter" featuring vocalist Tony Harnell, and "Escape From The City" featuring Ted Poley and Tony Harnell.[1]

Continued Work With SEGA

In 2003, Sega announced their first multiplatform Sonic game, Sonic Heroes. This time, Jun worked with groups such as Gunnar Nelson, Julien-K, Kay Hanley and Johnny Gioeli, as well as the rest of the band. In this game, there were two new Crush 40 songs: the theme tune "Sonic Heroes", an upbeat, melodic song and in contrast "What I'm Made Of", a distinctly dark, almost metallic sounding song to depict the final battle in the game. [1] The music itself is also found on the soundtrack Triple Threat: Sonic Heroes Vocal Trax[6] [7]

In 2005, Sega announced Shadow the Hedgehog and 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.[8]

Despite information and rumors that Crush 40 would not be in the 2006 game Sonic the Hedgehog, they proved all of these untrue and performed in the final version of the game. They created their own rendition of "All Hail Shadow", previously performed by Magna-Fi in the game, Shadow the Hedgehog. They also recorded a version of His World, the main theme of Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. In this song, they experimented with some hip hop elements, in addition to their normal style. Finally, Jun made his own version of Silver's theme, "Dreams of an Absolution" (subtitled 'LB vs JS Remix'). All three of these songs are on this game's soundtrack, Sonic the Hedgehog Vocal Traxx : Several Wills[9]

Recently, Crush 40 has been confirmed to have contributed their song "Live and Learn" to the upcoming video game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Jun Senoue has remixed a track from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the game, a remix of the "Angel Island Zone Theme".[10]

On January 23, 2008, the album True Blue: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog was released in Japan, and on the album is a Crush 40 redone version 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", "What I'm Made Of", "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), as well as the remix of the Angel Island Zone Theme that Jun Senoue prepared for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. [11]

Discography

Crush 40 have currently released two independent albums (as of 2007), as well as individual tracks on numerous soundtracks to the games listed above.

(2000) Thrill of the Feel
Track Title Time
1 The Star Spangled Banner 1:22
2 Dangerous Ground 2:32
3 Into the Wind 4:28
4 Fill It Up 2:30
5 Revvin' Up 4:35
6 Rush into the Crazy World 0:48
7 In the Lead 4:03
8 Watch Me Fly 5:09
9 On the Road Again 1:40
10 Fuel Me 2:44
11 When the Sun Goes Down 1:50
12 All the Way 4:09
13 Open Your Heart (Bonus Track) 5:11


(2003) Crush 40
1 Live And Learn 4:30
2 Revvin' Up 4:34
3 Into the Wind 4:28
4 In the Lead 4:02
5 Watch Me Fly... 5:08
6 Fuel Me 2:43
7 Dangerous Ground 2:10
8 All the Way 4:09
9 Open Your Heart 5:15
10 It Doesn't Matter (Bonus Track) 4:27
11 Escape from the City (Bonus Track) 2:20

Other Tracks:

Gameography

All of Crush 40's songs have been included in numerous video games for SEGA. Games that include music tracked by Crush 40 are:


Genres

Crush 40's style has been referred to "melodic hard rock, somewhere between XYZ and Burning Rain" [12] This style is a constant in many of their earlier works.

In recent games (Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, etc.), Crush 40 has experimented with other forms of alternative rock. "I Am...(All Of Me)", for example, exhibits a strong use of industrial metal elements, and the Crush 40 version of "His World" has many symphonic rock influences.

Guitarist Jun Senoue has stated the following:

"I know what my style is, and I know what my favourite genres of music are. I listen to a lot of metal music, as well as other genres of music, and my inspiration is always there. The style of the music in the game does change, and it gives a great sense of progression."

"When we got together to write stuff for Shadow, we found that our fresh ideas were a lot different to the songs we’d written back in 2002 – our sound had changed." [13]



Artists

Current Lineup

Previous Members

  • Bass: Naoto Shibata
  • Drums: Hirotsugu Homma

References

  1. ^ a b c d e http://www.junsenoue.com/content/view/1/14
  2. ^ a b c http://junsenoue.com/content/view/13/19/
  3. ^ http://www.junsenoue.com/content/view/2/10/
  4. ^ http://digilander.libero.it/aorwebsite/jan03.htm
  5. ^ http://junsenoue.com/content/view/10/19/
  6. ^ a b c http://www.gmronline.com/info.asp?CatNumber=WWCE-31020
  7. ^ http://www.doubleeclipse.com/news.html
  8. ^ a b c http://www.gmronline.com/info.asp?CatNumber=WWCE-31114
  9. ^ a b c http://www.gmronline.com/info.asp?CatNumber=WWCE-31142
  10. ^ http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/music/music19.html
  11. ^ http://www.sonicstadium.org/sonicnews/405/
  12. ^ http://www.progressiveworld.net/crush40.html
  13. ^ "Q&A with Jun Senoue Part 1". Retrieved 2006-08-14.
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