Senoue Jun

Jun Senoue-Sama with a wicked Sonic Guitar! (His website, with his band, Crush 40.)

His bands were the famous:

Crush 40: The band originally started as a project band to create music for NASCAR Arcade; Crush 40 is the name of the project of both Jun Senoue, performing the guitar and musical bits, and Johnny Gioeli, the vocalist, from Hardline. Their works have spread from their original music made for racing to songs for the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Currently, the band has released one album and several other songs on video game soundtracks.

JxJ: In 2005, Mr. Senoue released an EP with Japanese voice actress, Junko Noda, titled, "Ready!". The project goes under the name JxJ (Jun x Junko (A form of Japanse 'pairing', when placing an x between the names.)) and is only available throughout Japan, though copies have slowly made their way through the Jun Senoue fan page.

Mr. Jun Senoue started playing the piano at age 3 while living in Japan. After moving to Panama, he started to dedicate himself to rock; by this time, he was 12 years of age. He started to teach himself how to play the electric guitar at age 15, and made his first original band recording at age of 17.

In 1993, after graduating from college with a degree in economics from Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan, he joined Sega, the company associated with Sonic Team, as a video game composer, doing sound work for games such as Sonic the Hedgehog 3. He is most well-known for his compositions and songs in Sonic Adventure.

Mr. Jun Senoue moved to San Francisco and continued to compose video game music and theme songs as sound director for Sonic Team USA games, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, featuring music contributed by his band Crush 40. Mr. Jun Senoue also composed the Reala theme, "Them of a Tragetic Revenge", and programmed all sound effects for Sonic Team USA's most long awaited sequel, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.

In the year of 2007, Mr. Senoue provided three new tracks for the Japanese console release of OutRun 2 SP, including covers of existing series tracks "Splash Wave" and "Rush a Difficulty", and an original track titled "Lift You Up!" The songs are also available on the "Outrun 20th Anniversary" box CD set.

Semoue-Sama is also one of 38 composers for the popular Wii game, "Super Smash Bros. Brawl", having contributed an arrangement of the Angel Island Zone theme from Sonic The Hedgehog 3, as well as the original versions of many well-known Crush 40 songs, such as the fan favorite, "Live and Learn".

Recently, Jun was assigned as sound director for Sonic and the Black Knight. The music was a mix of the classic "Sonic Rock" fans are accustomed to, as well as Celtic blended into the mix.

He inspires all people listening to his music; most of the lyrics within them have positive messages and, as the fans say, "Really picks them up when they're down".