John Ondrasik Biography
Five For Fighting singer/songwriter
Singer/songwriter John Ondrasik (On drah sick) has spent the past decade writing deeply personal songs that include social messages, invoke the human spirit and make an emotional connection. This can be heard on the past four albums by Five For Fighting, the band name under which he records and performs.
Ondrasik's debut album, the critically acclaimed, Message for Albert, was released in 1997. Five For Fighting's breakthrough came in 2001 with the Grammy-nominated song "Superman" from the Platinum certified "America Town" (Aware/Columbia) CD. Already climbing the charts prior to 9/11, "Superman" went on to have a life of his own, becoming a song of healing for the nation. John joined superstar musicians for the now legendary post 9/11 fundraiser The Concert For New York, which paid tribute to all the firefighters, police officers and paramedics affected by the events of September 11th.
In 2004, John recorded the Platinum-certified album, The Battle For Everything, which yielded the retrospective hit, "100 Years," a song that has become a part of classic American songbook. With the 2006 release of Two Lights, featuring "World," the hit song "The Riddle," and "Freedom Never Cries," John continued to craft songs with material drawn from his personal experience in regards to love, war, culture, family, humanity and mortality.
In the fall of 2007, Ondrasik released the first live Five For Fighting CD titled "Live", and the DVD, "Back Country Live" . The CD captures the band live in concert and the DVD features live concert footage, Five For Fighting Music videos, interviews and bonus features.
In addition to his musical accomplishments John has a made a personal commitment towards causes that are important to him. In February of 2007, Ondrasik launched a unique charity-driven web site, whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com that raises money for various charities when users view video clips provided by visitors to the site. Current views are over three million with approximately three hundred thousand dollars donated.
The success of the site led to late 2007 collaboration between Ondrasik and The History Channel, with the launching a user-generated video contest. Fans created a video on Eyespot.com describing what kind of world they want by making a video using archival footage of important historical events and the Five For Fighting song "World" as the music bed. One winning video was chosen to air on The History Channel.
John has also been a dedicated supporter of US troops. In March 2007, he performed at Guantanamo Bay for service members on his first USO/Armed Forces Entertainment tour. Since then John has performed for US forces on USO tours in Hawaii, Guam and Japan.
Ondrasik has also conceived and produced "For the Troops," a CD compilation series of superstar recording artists that is available for free to every active service person in the US Armed Forces. Volume 1, released on Thanksgiving 2007, included Billy Joel, Brooks & Dunn, Josh Groban, The Fray, Melissa Etheridge, Los Lonely Boys as well as Five For Fighting's "100 Years." Over 200,000 CDs were distributed in Iraq, Afghanistan, military hospitals, USO centers and to various troops support groups. Over three hundred and fifty thousand songs were downloaded from the Army/Air Force exchange online store aafes.com. "For the Troops 2", released on Thanksgiving 2008, includes Maroon 5, Keith Urban, Daughtry, 3 Doors Down, Five For Fighting, Roy Orbison and others.
Five for Fighting
Slice
If every album provides snapshots of where an artist's mind at heart is at the moment, Slice, the latest offering from John Ondrasik (aka Five for Fighting), is a collection of digital jpegs and faded Polaroids. The album takes stories of friends, family and even American servicemen, and sets them to music shot through with the spirit of the great songs of his youth. It's a diary, or a blog, in which Ondrasik speaks his mind about current issues, experiences and sentiments, while setting those thoughts to piano, bass and drums.
The title track, featuring Ondrasik's soaring falsetto, comes from a daydream that we've all had at some point in our lives—that moment when we long for a simpler time when life seemed better and the songs were bigger. It's a sly play on one of those grand songs, Don McClean's "American Pie": "There was a time a long, long time ago/Chevies and levies played on the radio/No cell phones just 20,000 lights, swaying on a Saturday night."
Academy Award-winning composer Steven Schwartz (who penned the songs for acclaimed musicals such as Wicked, Godspell andPippin), helped Ondrasik bring the idea to fruition, co-writing "Slice" (as well as the song "Above the Timberline"). "We sat down at a coffee shop to talk about writing together," says Ondrasik, " I told him about my idea for 'Slice," and 'American Pie' actually came on the radio. It was surreal. Stephen immediately wrote the first two lines on a napkin, and we were off and running.
"I've been a fan of Five for Fighting since I first heard 'Superman'," says Schwartz, "and then was blown away by '100 Years.' I got the full CDs and was really impressed by John Ondrasik's writing—great tunes and smart and surprising lyrics. So naturally I didn't hesitate a moment when John asked me to co-write a couple of songs with him. It was, as I expected, great collaborating with him—experiencing first-hand his musicality and gift for melody, his incisive way with words, and the passion and care he puts into each of his songs."
The release of Slice is being led with first single "Chances," a sweeping, grand pop song with a simple message: "Until you crash what have you done/Is there a better bet than love." Says Ondrasik, "It's all about taking the swing—there's beauty in the scars."
The celebrated, Southern California-born singer/songwriter's fifth album under the Five for Fighting banner, Slice finds Ondrasik spreading his creative wings, ever so gently incorporating his love for classic R&B on songs like "Love Can't Change the Weather" and even firing up a Marshall stack on "Transfer." Lyrically, he honors his family ("Story of Your Life" was written for his wife of 12 years), friends and personal heroes, from fitness pioneer Augie Nieto to American servicemen serving around the world. If it's a tribute to a bygone era, Slice, the follow-up to 2006's Two Lights, is also an accurate and well-rounded snapshot of who Ondrasik is at the moment, as an artist. Produced by Ondrasik and Gregg Wattenberg, and partially tracked at his Southern California home, the album features sweeping statement songs like the title track, but quiets on sparse ballads like "This Dance" and the ageless "Hope," before ramping up again on tracks like "Note to the Unknown Soldier".
It was of course his tender playing and touching vocal on the Grammy-nominated "Superman"—from the Five for Fighting albumAmerica Town (2000) —which thrust Ondrasik into the national spotlight eight years ago. While written and released well before 9/11, "Superman" has endeared Ondrasik to the survivors and families of those lost in that tragedy, as well as to servicemen serving around the world.
The events of 9/11 are at the core of the Slice song "Tuesday," on which Ondrasik sings: "The thing about memories/They're sure and bound to fade/Except for the stolen souls/Left upon her blade". Ondrasik explains: "That song isn't 'Superman Part 2,' there's none of that in there. It's much more of a plea for us to not forget the lessons we learned that day."
Ondrasik's relationship with those survivors and families has led to life-changing experiences and celebrated philanthropic work for the singer, who has since found performed USO concerts around the world. His audiences have included General David Petraeus and the National Guardsmen at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ondrasik also conceived and produced For the Troops, a series of compilations featuring superstar recording artists that are available for free to every active service member in the U.S. Armed Forces (the forthcoming collection, For The Troops III, will feature comedians exclusively). Ondrasik's charity work doesn't stop there. His site whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com collects money for various charities.
The singer's ongoing support of servicemen and women, and his dedication to his own wife and children, even led to him receiving a special fatherhood award from the National Fatherhood Initiative's 2009 Military Fatherhood Award Ceremony. Married with a daughter and son, Ondrasik says it was actually his devotion to all three and his desire to stay home that is to blame for the new album taking a little longer than previous albums. That, and of course the fact that he fills his life with myriad projects, from writing a column for Sports Illustrated to co-writing with the likes of Brooks & Dunn, Josh Groban, and scoring music for such films as August Rush andChicken Little.
It's all a culmination of a life literally spent playing music. Born in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley and raised in a musical family, Ondrasik was just two when he started playing piano, later adding guitar. Yet it wasn't for almost three decades (and four years after the release of the debut Five for Fighting album, Message for Albert), before he became a mainstream star via "Superman" from the critically laudedAmerica Town album, which Ondrasik and company followed up in 2004 with The Battle for Everything, a springboard for the classic "100 Years." Ondrasik's songs "Superman," "100 Years," "World," and "Freedom Never Cries" continue to endure in America's songbook proving Ondrasik's ability to stand the musical test of time.
"Every round I try to write the best songs I can, and perhaps step out of the box a bit. To me, records are about offering my worldview while providing sentiments to which people may attach themselves or escape into. Slice is where I've come from, where I am, and a few scraps I've picked up in between. All in a slice of time."