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John Ondrasik, better known as the man behind the group Five For Fighting, is hitting the road this summer with a full band behind him.  Five For Fighting will be playing the House of Blues on August 7.  We had a chance to do a Zoom call with Ondrasik to talk about his career and his upcoming appearance in Cleveland.

 

Greg Drugan:  Hey John!  You are going to be hitting the road soon with a full band behind you this summer instead of just you and a guitar and a piano.  What made you change it up this time?

 

John Ondrasik:  For the last few years we’ve been doing a string quartet in the spring and the fall and the rock band in the summer.  I think since COVID, we have a greater appreciation for doing what we do.  We kind of alternate between opening, we opened up for the Bare Naked Ladies last summer, and then we do headlining shows.  It’s awesome to be back on the bus.  For many years, I didn’t tour with the rock band but after COVID, everyone’s like, “how lucky are we and let’s go have some fun.” I play with incredible musicians both in the rock band and the string quartet, they’re like my second family. It’s like a family reunion and it’s my favorite part of the year.

 

GD:  So how long is this tour gonna last?

 

JO:  The rock tour is about three weeks.  The we’ll do another three weeks in the fall with the string quartet.  I’m always doing one offs here and there but it’s not crazy long.  I think at our age, playing 200 shows a year for me was great twenty years ago.  I like to do about 50-60 shows a year.  I think that’s a nice balance.

 

GD:  That’s perfect.  When you go out on the road, you mentioned being on the bus, do you bring anything with you that helps remind you of home or something that helps you with some down time?

 

JO:  It’s funny.  The tour bus is set up much differently than it was 20 years ago.  Twenty years ago we didn’t have blenders for health shakes and bottles of Motrin and a pharmacy.  So everybody is very health conscious these days, we don’t eat pizza after every show. (laughs)  The last show of the tour we’ll get pizza.  Sometimes my family comes out with me.  My daughter is an aspiring singer-songwriter so she’ll come out and sell some merch and my wife will meet me on the road.  My family seems to find the time to come out with me.  You try to bring some candles from home, bring some books.  Pete Thorn and Randy Cook, I’ve known these guys so long, it is just like a family affair. Because these tours are relatively short, you don’t get homesick. 

 

GD:  You recently released the single, “Ok (We Are Not Ok),” what compelled you to write that song?

 

JO:  The song is about the aftermath of October 7 and the Hammas atrocities. It was inspired by a speech that the mayor of New York gave in the early days after October 7.  He said something is really broken in the country when we have thousands of people celebrating the atrocities in Israel in Times Square.  Over the next few months we all saw the collapse of many of our moral institutions.  Media outlets sort of becoming Hammas propaganda, certainly our college campuses run amok with anti-semitism.  My alma mater, UCLA being one of the worst offenders and even members of congress who basically became Hammas spokesman and that really scared me. I wrote “Ok, (We’re Not OK)” and I think that’s true. I didn’t expect the reaction the song got.  I’m not a Jewish person, but when Israel shared the video of “OK” I understood a little bit what Jewish people are dealing with in 2024.  So it’s been an education for me. To go to Israel and perform at Hostage Square for the hostage families and the people of Israel. It kinda reminded me of the Concert for New York when I played after 9/11.  It’s been quite a journey but one thing that’s been disappointing to me is the reaction of the music business.  We are supposed to be Live Aid or Sun City or the Concert for New York.  We stand up for human rights and the fact that so few, especially the icons in the music business have condemned Hammas.  It’s not about, do you love Israel or you love Netanyahu, but can you condemn these atrocities, can you say release the hostages?  I wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal, an op-ed, a couple of weeks ago.  You might remember, in 1979, during the Iran hostage crises, there were yellow ribbons around every tree in America. We have five hostages and nobody knows their names.  We’re not ok.  Something in the culture is broken and if we don’t address that and face it head on, it’s only gonna get worse. 

 

GD:   I’m glad you have the courage to take a stand and ask where are those other artists to kinda rally behind you and say, “this is not ok.”  I’m behind you for sure. 

 

JO:  Thank you.

 

GD:  So you put out that single, are there any plans to make more new music or perhaps put out an EP or an album?  I know we are more singles oriented these days. 

 

JO:  I sure miss the album.  I’m an old curmudgeon guy and it’s my job to say, “oh, the good old days!”  I miss song number seven that’s not going to be on the radio that becomes “New York State Of Mind” or something like that. I haven’t put much energy into making a record in the past ten years. I’m busy with family things and touring. The last three songs have been about Afghanistan, one about Ukraine and all of them have had global impacts  They’ve had tens of millions of views. That has inspired me to keep doing it and also to write some songs that are not based on these horrible events. For the first time in seven or eight years, I’m excited about doing a record. I’m hoping to have in the next year or so, Five For Fighting record number seven. 

 

GD:  We will be looking forward to that for sure.  Looking back on your career, who was the first artist you saw in concert and how did that impact you?

 

JO:  No coincidence, it was Billy Joel at the LA Forum in the mid ‘80s the Glass Houses tour.  I already had a love for music and songwriting.  My mom was a piano teacher and I learned to play piano at a young age. I was doing musical theater and all of this stuff. Seeing Billy and Elton of course, like so many young singer-songwriter piano players in the ‘80s, I wanted to do that. (laughs) I saw it and I wanted to do that!  The songwriters of the ‘70s had a big impact on me, not just Billy and Elton, but the rock bands like The Who, Queen and Steve Perry.  But also James Taylor’s and Joni Mitchell’s the real songwriters, the “Cats and the Cradle” to me it’s the golden age of songwriting. Not just the piano guys but the great songwriters and the great classic rock bands, I think that really formed my influences. 

 

GD:   You started out more of a rocker. How did you end up meeting Rudy Sarzo and Scott Sheets?

 

JO:  That’s a great question.  Just out of college, we had a little timeshare in Malibu.  I was spending my summers in Malibu kind of writing and surfing and dong what young people do in California. I went to the community pool one day and there were two dudes laying there with really long hair and they looked cool and kinda “rocky.”  So we started chatting and one was Rudy and one was Scott Sheets.  Rudy happened to live in this complex and he kinda took me under his wing.  It was like an Almost Famous thing. He heard a couple of my songs, he started to mentor me, started going to the studio with me and this was when he was in Whitesnake and Whitesnake was at the top of the charts. He was kinda like a closet Barry Manilow fan, he loved that type of music. Scott, who was Pat Benatar’s guitar player, started forming a band with other members of Pat Benatar’s band.  so I’m this 22 year old singer in a band with all of these rock stars in their forties. It was a great education.  We wrote some songs and were on the verge of a record deal and then Nirvana came out and the whole thing ended overnight. In a way it was a blessing for me. Because I had this experience and I learned a lot but I went back to the piano where I belonged. I still keep in touch with Rudy and I still keep in touch with Scott. I don’t think anyone but my parents were more proud of me than Rudy.  It was great to have experiences with these guys, they were a part of my formative experiences. 

 

GD:  You do go more of the singer-songwriter route and you have a huge hit with “Superman,” when you recorded did you know it was going to be a hit?

 

JO:   Actually, when I first wrote it I didn’t even think it was for me.  Remember, it was the late nineties.  It was Lilith Fair, boy bands and grunge.  It wasn’t the mid seventies where Elton and Billy owned the radio.  There was no piano on the radio. There were no piano singer-songwriters. The first song we put out for Five For Fighting was “Easy Tonight,” which was more of an acoustic rock song. The song did just well enough to give us another shot at it. I had seen “Superman” get a reaction when I performed it.  I saw people embrace it in ways they didn’t with other songs. When I suggested that we release it as a single, the record label said, “piano ballads aren’t happening right now.”  I felt, if I’m gonna go down, let me go down with a song that I felt would work.  It struggled on radio for a long time because it was different. It became number one in the Philippeans, believe it or long before anywhere else. It took a long time, but once it reached that tipping point because it was different and because it was unique it became a big song.  Then after 9/11 it became the song that recognized the heroes and it went somewhere that nobody could imagine. Who am I to know what a hit is? Once you put it out there, it’s not yours anymore. 

 

GD:  When you wrote that song, was it easy to write or was it something you had to work on?  Some people say the song wrote itself while others say they had to chip away at it and grind it out until it became what it is.

 

JO:  It was a gift!  Very rare.  I basically wrote the whole thing besides the double pre-hook, in an hour.  I wrote a thousand songs before anyone heard one and it was another one of those songs.  I almost didn’t put it on the first record but my producer kept saying, “we’ve got to do that little song.” We even called it, “the little song.” Because it came so easily, it was overlooked.  My joke is that I’ve been looking for that 45 minutes or hour ever since. “100 years” took three or four months to get it right. “The Middle” almost took a year.  For me, it’s very rare to get those gifts, maybe it’s a gift from god. Wherever it came from, thank you! (laughs)

 

GD:  You mentioned that it became the theme for post 9/11.  It was the perfect song for the era.  You mentioned playing the Concert for New York City.  What was that like playing Madison Square Garden with all of those iconic people?  Some that you mentioned. 

 

JO: Yeah, and meeting them and being next to The Who and singing “Let It Be” with Paul McCartney.  I think on any other day, it would be the dream, the highlight of any young songwriters life. That day wasn’t about that, it was about the families, the workers who had been down at ground zero for months digging through rubble and giving them an outlet. That night gave me a new purpose for music.  Of course we all want fame and fortune and we like hits and all that comes with it. It wasn’t my performance of “Superman.”  It was watching The Who, when they came out and blew the roof off Madison Square Garden.  I saw people, who went through the worst of possible circumstances, crying, singing, screaming.  I remember looking at this guy with two beers in his hand, singing and crying. Once in awhile, music becomes more than just fame and fortune.  It becomes cultural, it becomes critical, it becomes historic. To give these people a way to release, in a way that nothing else could.  That’s the reason why I’ve spent twenty years playing for the troops and doing some of these new songs that have impacted the culture in ways that hit songs don’t do. That night for me was transformative in ways that I really didn’t understand until many years later. 

 

GD:  Excellent!  You mentioned The Who and I remember sitting at home with millions of others across America watching that and now things are flashing back to me as well. Yes, music can bring people together and like you said, give a release. It was a big release that those people needed and everybody needed because we all went through it.

 

JO:  Yes! We all did!  We all needed to scream, we all needed to cry, we all needed to sing. That’s music at its best for me.  

 

GD:  For sure! You got in on the tailend when people were still buying physical music.  Today it is mostly streaming.  What is your take on music being used in TikTok and social media  and commercials to get their music out there?

 

JO:  Like anything, it’s a double edged sword.  Your right, when “Superman” hit in 2001, that was the height of the music industry and then everything collapsed. All of the tour support went away. People forget that Bruce Springsteen broke on his third record.  To have tour support to build artists and then that went away. So artist development went away and for so long it was hard to make a living as a singer songwriter and musician.  Music just became a hobby and it took a long time for streaming to catch up.  The collapse of the model of the music business hurt the culture because there wasn’t the funding to develop new artists. With the internet, you don’t have to have a record company to be successful. You can get your music out to millions of people without having the machine behind you.People put out singles, and the song goes away in three months.  I wonder, what songs from this era are we going to be hearing ten, twenty, thirty years from now? Are there many songs that are gonna stand the test of time because we are in such a quick fix, hit me with your best shot in two seconds it’s over moment.  You’re not really developing long term songwriters and artists.  I’m kinda mixed on that.  I do like the fact that people can be heard, I do like the fact that you can make music much cheaper, you can make a record on your laptop.  I think overall, it’s a positive thing but this whole quick fix, instantaneous mindset that we live in and the fact that we’re all on our phones and not together.  I do think that’s why touring is so popular because that’s one of the last things that happen in the moment that we can experience live, together.  That and sports of course. 

 

GD:  That’s a great point.  What’s the lasting music going to be in this decade?  I don’t know.  That is a very good point. You mentioned that you are bringing your live band out with you, filling out the whole sound. A lot of  artists today are using backing tracks and computers.  What is your take on artists that are using technology during performances?

 

JO:  I’m the curmudgeon.  I like when people can play their own instruments. I like when people can sing without autotune. (laughs)  It’s an experience, it’s entertainment. We don’t use any tracks with the exception of “Can One Man Save The World” the song I wrote for Ukraine.  We play the orchestra audio, when I played with the orchestra in Ukraine.  Just to give people a sense of what it sounded like there. Everyone sings live.  We don’t have tracks and for me it’s about, this is who we are and this is what we do. My favorite bands didn’t use tracks and they didn’t need help. Kids today have different expectations.  Not all the tracks are because you can’t play or you can’t sing, you just can’t bring 15 people on stage,  For us, we’re old school.

 

GD:  I’m old school right there with you.  I like a live band and people that can play. You will be playing the House of Blues here in Cleveland next week.  Do you have any memories of playing in Cleveland?

 

JO:  I have great memories of playing in Cleveland. We’ve had so many shows. My pal, Jim Brickman in town, we've done some writing together. He’s my kind of Cleveland guy. I remember a Halloween show that we played early in my career in Cleveland which John Waite, one of my heroes opened for me.  My favorite Cleveland show was the night the Browns finally ended their losing streak.  That night all the bars said if the Browns won, all the alcohol was free.  So I celebrated that night with the two bartenders at the club we played at until 2 in the morning, toasting the Browns.  That was my favorite moment, I don’t know if we’ll ever top that in Cleveland. It’s always fun to play, obviously it’s a music city and we have that date circled on our tour. 

 

GD:  Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again, we don’t want that losing streak!  You are playing with a full band next week, what can fans expect from your show?

 

JO:  You will hear the songs you know, we always have a few surprises.  I try and tell people it’s a family show so won’t have to worry about bringing your kids, bring your grandparents. We always do a song that recognizes the troops and the United States miiitary. We’ll play a couple of the new songs that people have been asking to hear.  It’s also a story telling, fun show where I talk about my experiences and where the songs came from.  I have such incredible players,  Pete Thorn one of the best guitar players in the world, Randy Cook is a world class drummer.  The musicianship, some nights I just get lost watching them.  There may be a surprise or two.

 

GD:  That’s great!  We love surprises.  John, thank you so much for your time and I will get the word out and we will pack the House of Blues for you next Friday night. 

 

JO.  Greg, you’re the man!

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Make sure you check out Five For Fighting at The House of Blues this Friday. 

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​You can watch the full Zoom video below. 

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