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Current Lineup
Vocals Johnny Gioeli
Guitars Jun Senoue
Bass Takeshi Taneda
Drums Toru Kawamura Previous Members
Bass Naoto Shibata
Drums Hirotsugu Homma
Drums Mark Schulman
Drums Katsuji Current Status
Jun Senoue has finished worked on the Sonic and the Black Knight soundtrack.
Johnny Gioeli has finished work on Hardline's 3rd album "Leaving The End Open" History
Crush 40, previously known as Sons of Angels, was originally formed as a project band to record music for Sega''s arcade racing game NASCAR Rubbin'' Racing, or EA Sports NASCAR Arcade in the west. The core of the group is hard rock guitarist Jun Senoue and melodic rock vocal legend Johnny Gioeli. Jun Senoue is Sega''s very own guitar hero, working for Sega''s internal sound department Wave Master but residing in San Francisco, working with Sonic Team USA. His virtuoso technique, influenced by Edward Van Halen and Joe Satriani and guitar acrobatics are a trademark of the band. Johnny Gioeli is a cult vocal legend, possessing one of the most distinct and raw voices in melodic rock today. Although during the 80s he was known to those who frequented the strip in LA with the band Brunette, while his first appearance on a major label album was the classic Hardline debut "Double Eclipse". This album is regarded as a classic by melodic rock fans, and is still finding new fans today. However, the band did not last beyond their first album, even though all the material had been written for a second album, they parted ways in 1992. In 1994, Johnny sang a song on shredder Doug Aldrich''s solo album Electrofied called "Face Down". After a long period away from the music industry, he returned in the late 90s, joining neo classical shredder Axel Rudi Pell on his solo albums while writing material for the comeback Hardline album "II". Originally, the rhythm section of Loudness (Naoto Shibata and Hirotsugu Homma) provided the band with the bass and drums respectively, but as they had full time commitments to Loudness, and later on Anthem, they did not return on further Crush 40 songs. Instead, longtime friends of Jun, Katsuji and Takeshi Taneda joined during Sonic Adventure 2. The first Crush 40 song was Open Your Heart, originally recorded with an unknown Japanese vocalist for the theme tune of Sonic Adventure for Sega''s newly released Dreamcast console back in 1998. With Johnny Gioeli on board, this was the beginning of a long relationship between Jun and Johnny that would eventually lead to the formation of the band. This came to fruitition via a friend of Jun''s who knew Doug Aldrich, who in turn contacted Johnny. When Jun was working on the soundtrack to NASCAR Rubbin'' Racing, he formed the project band "Sons of Angels", taken from the song on the Daytona USA CCE soundtrack that featured Eric Martin. The lineup was Jun on guitars, Johnny on vocals, Hiro on drums and Naoto on bass. In the March of 2000, the band released "Thrill of the Feel", a compilation of the songs they wrote for the arcade game. The album recieved a warm reception, with it''s blend of raw, racing rock n'' roll and soaring instrumentals coupled with Johnny''s legendary voice. The next appearance of the band was in 2001, when Sonic Adventure 2 was being worked on in time for Sonic''s 10 anniversary. As mentioned before, commitments to other bands meant Naoto and Hiro could not take part, so Katsuji and Takeshi were brought in to record songs for the game. "Live and Learn" was the result of the band, an old fashioned hard rocker but with modern production. All went quiet during 2002, then just under three years from the initial release, under the new name Crush 40, the European version of the Sons of Angels album was announced. It was stripped of the instrumentals, and in turn included both prior Sons of Angels songs from the Sonic games and two other songs featuring vocalists Tony Harnell and Ted Poley. During 2003, Sega announced the first multiplatform Sonic game, Sonic Heroes. Once again, Jun was the sound director, and began writing, this time as a collaboration with artists such as Gunnar Nelson, Julien K, Kay Hanley and of course Johnny Gioeli. This time, there were two new Crush 40 songs: the theme tune "Sonic Heroes", a bright, melodic song and in contrast "What I'm Made Of", a distinctly dark hard rock song with metal sensibilities. Sonic Heroes was released at the end of 2003 in Japan, and in early 2004 in the US and Europe.
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. This marked Crush 40's first live appearance with singer Johnny Gioeli.
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Crush 40 
the version I've heard is rlly awesom...
First Johnny joins him in Crush 40, a...
OMGGGG can u pls post the guitar tabs...
Oh, and by the way, Jun isn't in Hard...
WOW! Indeed, this wasn't expected...I...