Crush 40 guitarist Jun Senoue talks about the band’s creation and the evolution of Sonic Music


The first Sonic games were famous for his music, sOr when the sound changed from its more traditional video game style as heard on Genesis and Sega CDs to the hard rock music that floods the soundtracks of modern Sonic games, it was a huge risk. However, Sega was able to usher in the modern era of Sonic music thanks in large part to Crush 40, a band led by vocalist Johnny Gioeli and guitarist Jun Senoue. Gioeli, a rock veteran, has fronted several bands, including Hardline and Axel Rudi Pell, while Senoue began working on the Sega sound team on games like Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sega Rally 2.

While fans of the modern age of Sonic games are familiar with the band’s many tracks, including beloved songs like “Open Your Heart,” “Live & Learn,” and “Sonic Heroes,” fans new or outdated. they had an excellent excuse to dive. on the sounds of Crush 40 during last month’s Sonic Symphony 30th anniversary concert (you can see it all here). Following the positive reception of that virtual performance, we reached out to Senoue to learn more about his time working on games, the formation of Crush 40, and the band’s biggest hits.


Before starting work on the Sonic franchise, what were your impressions of the music in the games up to that point?
The first soundtrack album I bought was a cassette tape of Namco’s arcade game music in the mid-80s, and I still have it. I remember those games were released in North America by Atari back in the day. At that point, I recognized that game music repeated impressive phrases with a limited number of notes. I loved the first Sonic The Hedgehog game released on the Sega Genesis in 1991, including its music, and that was the reason I chose Sega to run in 1992, and here I am.

When you started working with Sega on the Sonic games, you said you used to have to send demos to the US by boat, then they would give feedback via fax. How did that process evolve over time as technology advanced further?
When we worked on Sonic The Hedgehog 3, the development team was in the suburbs of San Francisco, California, and the Sega sound team that it belonged to was in Tokyo. I never met [lead programmer Yuji Naka], [lead designer Hirokazu Yasuhara], and [Sonic 3 designer and current head of Sonic Team Takashi Iizuka] in person during the development process at that time. It was a unique experience at that time that we airmail the DAT tapes to the development team for review and receive their prints by fax.

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Both the development team and I were in Tokyo when we worked on Sonic Adventure, and we worked on Sonic Adventure 2 and a few other titles during our days in San Francisco. I worked very closely with the development team, so we all exchanged views on the game’s design, structures, characters, story, and music at all times. After all, it’s about communication. If you can communicate with the team members in a good relationship, I don’t think there will be any problem since nowadays you can send the data anywhere in the world.

When Sonic made the leap to true 3D with Sonic Adventure, the soundtracks evolved impressively as well. How were the discussions when talking about the direction the soundtrack should take with this new era of the franchise?
At a very early stage, some music direction had already shown itself as a franchise. One was the music from the Genesis games and the other was dance music that was used in a non-US version of Sonic CD or Sonic R. I was the sound director and lead songwriter on Sonic Adventure and we wanted to change a lot of things drastically. , including the form of your music. There were many characters that were playable characters, and they had come to speak for the first time. Using English lyrics and a variety of musicality meant better expressing his personality and attitude. The core musicality … (i.e. guitar-driven rock-based music) was delivered with great confidence at the time.

How was the formation of Crush 40? How did the name Johnny Gioeli enter your mind to be the lead singer of the band, and how did you go about recruiting him?
There were 6 vocal songs in Sonic Adventure, and I remember finishing their title track “Open Your Heart” at the end. I liked the performance on the album Johnny released as Hardline in 1992, and I wanted to join together to do something with him one day. I found out that Johnny returned to the scene as a singer. for german guitarist [Axel Rudi Pell] in 1998, so I got in touch with him through a mutual acquaintance. Then we met in the suburban Los Angeles studio to record “Open Your Heart” in September 1998. From the moment the riff came to mind, I wrote that song assuming he would sing it, so the The result was what I expected. We enjoyed working together and wanted to do more, so we formed Sons Of Angels in 1999 to make the soundtrack to an arcade title. It was for NASCAR Arcade and we finished seven songs in total. Writing a song together for the first time was something special. Next, the second song we did for the Sonic franchise was “Live & Learn” in Sonic Adventure 2.

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When you’re making music not just as a rock band, but as a group that contributes music as part of a game development team, what is the writing and creation process like? How is that process different from when you are creating a song that is not for a video game soundtrack?
When I write songs for Crush 40 in addition to games, we just do what we want to perform as a band. When composing a song for a game, there are situations and themes in which the song would be used. So preparing something suitable is the first priority. The tempo of the song is basically determined by its use in the game.

Crush 40 has had some awesome and popular songs tied to the Sonic franchise, but Sonic Adventure 2’s “Live & Learn” is perhaps the most beloved. Do you remember any of the first impressions that you, the band, or the Sega / Sonic Team had of that song when you first experienced it?
First of all, I only came up with the intro and recorded it as the main music for the Sonic Adventure 2 trial edition. When I worked in the Los Angeles studio to record level music, I set up my own rig in another room in the studio. to make some arrangements there. The entire structure arrangement for “Live & Learn” came out very naturally and was done in one day. I sent my demo to Johnny and he returned it to me with his voice and lyrics. It was a perfect fit, but I missed that first vocal demo, unfortunately. “Live & Learn” has been very popular beyond our expectations. It’s great that some of our songs can be the lifelong special songs of Sonic fans.

It’s a somewhat rare occasion to see Crush 40 perform live, but when you have the opportunity to perform in front of a crowd, what makes you see the fans react in person?
In the first 10 years, we had never been able to get a chance to play our songs live. We started a full band performance in 2011 when we celebrated Sonic’s 20th anniversary. We always enjoy any opportunity to rock the house. It’s really cool to see a lot of fans go crazy over our songs!

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We have not been able to perform live with a packed audience for over a year, but the live stream of Sonic Symphony allowed Crush 40 to hold a virtual concert for over a million viewers. What was it like putting together that program and what was the reception like from your perspective?
Sonic Symphony was basically planned by [the internal Sonic unit at Sega] in California and produced in collaboration with the Boston-based production company. In the case of a long-running show in Japan, the song list will be over 20 songs, but this time Sonic Pillar reduced the songs as Sonic-related songs, so inevitably our set was full of theme songs this time. . I took care of the performances in Tokyo, Johnny did his thing in the States and the production company did an amazing job with the European orchestra. I’ve never shown a full band performance like Crush 40 to fans outside of Japan, so Johnny and I were very happy to show Sonic fans around the world what we can do. “Live & Learn” was especially epic. It went perfectly with an orchestra and was a great opportunity to celebrate both Sonic’s 30th anniversary and the song’s 20th anniversary.

What does the future of Crush 40 look like? Are you working on any new music right now?
Thank you for your continued support. I’m always working on new Crush 40 materials and can’t wait to show you some new stuff in the near future. Please check out our latest compilation called Driving forever. Hope you enjoy our non-Sonic songs along with Sonic related songs. I hope that one day we will have more opportunities to bring Crush 40 programs to more cities. Keep rocking!


For more information on Sonic the Hedgehog’s 30th anniversary, check out our interview with the head of Sonic Team. Takashi iizuka about all ads the team made during the Sonic Central presentation in May here. You can also see the full performance of Sonic Symphony (at the end of which Jun Senoue and Crush 40 performed) here. Finally, if you want more historical views of the Sonic series, including why the series experienced such a recession, why Sonic 2 was Sega’s great hope, and how Sonic made the leap to Nintendo platforms after the Dreamcast was discontinued, Please see the items listed below.


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