About this user
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. 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.
Another project of Jun's was NASCAR Arcade, 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.
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.
