Welcome to the Archive site of The Sonic Stadium (2008-2023)
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JunSenoue.com, for a limited time will be taking pre-orders for copies of the Sonic Free Riders Original Soundtrack “-Break Free-“, containing twelve tracks including the Crush 40 version of “Free”. Similarly to the offers last year, you can have your copy of the CD signed by Jun Senoue himself, by pre-ordering through the official shop for the bargain price of $23 plus shipping.
If you’ve already spent your money on Christmas this year…then don’t worry! Tune in to Project 24 on SEGASonic:Radio this Sunday (5th of December 2010) for an opportunity to win a copy for yourself!
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Shibuya, Tokyo, 7:30PM on a Sunday evening. Night time means nothing in this city, as the streets are still rammed full of shoppers going in and out of the many music, entertainment and fashion stores that line every main street and side alleyway. A sign and a menu is all that marks the rather uninteresting entrance to a well-known Italian restaurant, and three floors down, I’m sitting with the legendary Jun Senoue. Jun has been at the forefront of Sonic the Hedgehog music since 1993 and has since redefined the face of Sonic music with the formation of Crush 40 and their soundtrack to Sonic Adventure. TSS andjunsenoue.comhave been lucky enough to grab Jun for an exclusive interview…
T-Bird: So Jun, how are you, and what projects have been keeping you busy?
Jun: I’m working on several projects, at this moment I can only tell you that I’m working on Super Monkey Ball: Step and Roll which was released this month. I was not the composer; I took care of finding the singers and talent in a similar way I did for Sonic Unleashed and Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. The composers were Tomoya Ohtani and Mariko Nanba. There are eight vocal songs which meant I had to find eight singers; In the end these were two Japanese singers, three North Americans and three from Europe, with the genres of the tracks focusing on dance and club tunes.
T-Bird: To sort of follow on, can we expect any new material from you this year? I think “The Works” went down exceptionally well last year, and the burning question on everybody’s lips is when is the second Crush 40 album due out?
Jun: Yeah…we [Jun and Johnny Gioeli] are discussing when we should start work on the next album, or the next show. Originally I had a plan to do other Crush 40 shows here in Tokyo in early May, but Johnny is quite busy with Axel Rudi Pell [the German rock act Johnny performs with] so maybe we will get around to doing some shows. We had a TGS (Tokyo Game Show) performance in 2008, and a lot of kids wanted to be there. Unfortunately they could not attend as the event was during school time, so the aim is to do some shows during the summer or spring vacations.
T-Bird: Wow, that’d be very cool for the Japanese audiences! I think one of the most impressive soundtracks from last year was the Sonic and the Black Knight OST on the principle it was so musically diverse – how did you go about getting in touch with Tommy Tallerico, and what was it like working with him and Richard Jacques amongst others?
Jun: Talking about Sonic and the Black Knight, I ideally wanted to work with the guys who provided the songs to previous Sonic titles instead of teaming up with the SEGA composers I usually team up with. I asked Richard Jacques, then spoke to Howard Drossin. Talking about Tommy though, he was not an original Sonic composer. I’ve known him for years and we are good friends, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to team up with him and have him as a composer on this title.
Tommy provided us with ten ideas for tracks, and basically I selected three ideas from his list. He composed one of them from the start to the finish, and then the other two tracks I used the ideas and took care of them, arranged them and tracked the music with my band. It was a very fun experience!
T-Bird: I bet! Ok…(laughs) I guess this would be a good time to bring up Sonic the hedgehog 4: Episode 1 which has just been announced this week. Any thoughts? Anything you can tell us like, are you involved with the soundtrack?
Jun: Uhh…Ok. My answer is this; I hope I can tell you all the details in late spring or early summer!
T-Bird: Haha! Ok, I guess we will just have to wait then! As we mentioned before, you’ve heard of the Summer of Sonic. In 2008 we had TJ Davis and Richard Jacques, last year we had Bentley Jones return to perform…any chance in the near future for a Crush 40 appearance?
Jun: Talking about the shows we’ve done so far: with had a TGS performance back in 2008, and for that we played along with some backing tracks. For our next shows in Japan (more later!) we plan to have full band. If we come over to the UK, we will probably do something similar to what we did at TGS, but yes, we [Jun and Johnny] will be talking about it!
Don’t miss the second part of the Jun Senoue interview tomorrow, where Jun has answered some of the burning questions posed to him by you, the fans!
A massive thank you to Jeriaska from Gamasutra for the excellent photos!
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Yeah, I’m not good at the whole mystery game, but there you go. Anyway, earlier (or yesterday in my case) I caught up with legendary Sonic soundtrack composer, director and performer extrodinaire Jun Senoue in Shibuya, Tokyo. Needless to say I had a long chat with Jun about many things…things like the possibility of a second Crush 40 album…things about what he’s working on currently…and yes, even Sonic the Hedgehog 4 came up in conversation. So, keep an eye out on both Sonic Stadium and junsenoue.com for the interview on what’s going down over the next few days!
As well as the questions I had lined up, I also got Jun to answer what I thought were the seven best fan questions going, and so I asked both TSS and js.com readers to submit! I also said I would hand out a prize to the best question propped, but I had so many, I’m having to give out two prizes – one for a member of each site!
So first off, congratulations to both Michelle Palmer and Hawkz from TSS, who’s questions both made it into the final cut of the “Chaos Questions” as I’ve come to name them (there’s seven, see!), but, the my favourite question proposed was from….
Sinister Swiss!
Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of a Exclusive Japan-only COSPA Sonic the Hedgehog T-Shirt!
Please send me your name and address (and shirt size!) by either PM on SSMB or at tbird [at] sonicstadium.org. Also many congratulations to Ibbod0, Bluelightning, SoA and Sonic1991 (winner of the Sonic Heroes Triple Threat album!) on the JunSenoue.com forums – your questions have also made the cut too!
Thanks to everyone who sent in questions; there were many good ideas, and I hope in some way or another I will have asked a question you would like to know the answer too! Anyway, stay tuned for the full Jun Senoue Interview!
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
Jun Senoue is a man who needs little introduction. He’s had his hands in the Sonic pie since way back when, working alongside others such as Howard Drossin on the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 soundtrack. Mr Senoue really stepped into the spotlight with the launch of Sonic Adventure back in 1999, when Jun’s band Crush 40, fronted by Johnny Gioeli, blew most of the community away with its blistering soundtrack of fast-paced rock and epic power anthems. He’s just as awesome in real life too!
Well as most of you know Jun has been busy then, and not just with Sonic stuff. “The Works“ is a selection of tracks from other games such as the NASCAR and Daytona USA racing titles, along with music from the only-released-in-Japan titles, Managing Baseball Team Game / Managing J-League Football Team Game. Those of you who are fans of Ted Poley and Eric Martin will be pleased to know they both feature heavily on the album providing more awesome-sauce vocals.
Anyway, for a limited time Jun Senoue will be personally autographing copies of the soundtrack, which can be purchased on the official Jun Senoue fansite for the meagre price of $30 plus a small postage charge (works out at about £22 in total for UK peoples). Not bad eh? It also looks like Jun will be doing a similar thing with the Best of Crush 40 album “Super Sonic Songs” that will be released next month. The full track listings for both of the albums are listed on the website should you wish to examine them before purchase.
If you’re feeling a little tight fisted, or you simply haven’t got enough pocket money to blow on a copy, then don’t fret! There will be a chance to win yourself a copy of the album over the SEGASonic:Radio Project 24livecaston the 15th of November! Keep your eyes peeled for more info!
Props to Martin aka SOA, webmaster of junsenoue.com, for helping sort out this amazing offer for us lucky, lucky fans!
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
Please send me your name and address (and shirt size!) by either PM on SSMB or at tbird [at] sonicstadium.org. Also many congratulations to Ibbod0, Bluelightning, SoA and Sonic1991 (winner of the Sonic Heroes Triple Threat album!) on the JunSenoue.com forums – your questions have also made the cut too!
