Interview with John Ondrasik
John Ondrasik, whose stage name is Five for Fighting, is an American singer-songwriter.
From Ground Zero to Hostage Square
Contents
Max Raskin: Are there any protest songs or topical songs in your past that influenced you? Like Dylan or Seeger?
John Ondrasik: Not really. I grew up on the '70s singer-songwriters — Billy Joel, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor. I loved classic rock as a singer. I love Freddie Mercury and Queen and Zeppelin and Journey…Steve Perry.
MR: Well Joni Mitchell has “Woodstock” and Billy Joel has “The Downeaster ‘Alexa.’” Those are songs that are very on the nose. It's not a mystery what “The Downeaster ‘Alexa’” or “Allentown” are about.
JO: I was certainly aware of those songs, but I listened to the hits. I never set out with an ambition to write about global issues. I frankly have a disdain for celebs who stand on the soapbox and lecture us as our moral betters.
I've had qualms about releasing these songs, “Blood on My Hands,” “Can One Man Save the World,” and “OK” for that exact reason.
On the other hand, is what you mentioned, there's a history in music of protest songs and writing about the world around you, speaking to power, and giving a voice to those unheard. I think if you go back in my history, what gave me a different perspective was when “Superman” became one of the songs that recognized the heroes of 9/11. And when I played the Concert for New York and saw The Who blow the roof off Madison Square Garden and give 20,000 people, many who had been digging through the rubble at Ground Zero, a reason to cry, to sing, to release. That night I saw how music can matter beyond hits, beyond fame, fortune.
MR: How old were you in 2001?
JO: I was in my early 30s when 9/11 happened. That's an old guy with his first hit song. But I was still this new kid on the block who had just got used to hearing my song on the radio suddenly performing at MSG with all the living icons of the world. That experience led to communicating with our troops, in combat, during the Iraq War and writing songs about the lives of our soldiers and military families. I've had 30 years of supporting our troops, performing for our troops, writing for our troops. It's the honor of my life. But again, in my mind those aren't protest songs, they are songs of gratitude. But in the last few years, I have felt that certain things need to be said that very few people in the arts are saying regarding geopolitical events, freedom, liberty, and America's role in all the above, for better or worse.
MR: I think there’s this fine line where on the one hand you want your songs to have staying power — you want to say something eternal like the Great American Songbook or a lot of Dylan’s protest songs. But then you can take it too far and have songs about raising the top marginal tax rate from 37.2% to 41.8%.
JO: I’m in a different place in my career. Would I write these songs "protest songs" 30 years ago? I don't know. I would like to say I would, but I understand the pressure on new artists to not rock the boat. I've been blessed to have a couple songs, "Superman" and "100 Years" that people know that seem to have stood the test of time. I take no pleasure in writing any of these three latest songs. After "Blood on My Hands" about abandoning our allies to the Taliban I hoped I would never have to write another one. But I've also seen them react in ways that even my hit songs did not. “OK” (We Are Not OK) has not had one spin on the radio but has had millions of impressions, and was shared on social media by the nation of Israel. I was playing in Hostage Square for hostage families and millions of Jewish people around the world. So it's also been an education to me about how you can have an impact without having all the mechanisms of the music business, which is in some ways refreshing, and certainly humbling.
MR: Was that your first time in Israel?
JO: Yes.
MR: What were your impressions of the country? Not the politics or the situation.
JO: I wish I had more time to just immerse in the culture. We had a day in Jerusalem, which was wonderful, to go to the Wall, to hear the history, to do the tour. The food was amazing.
Superman and NASA
MR: Are you a religious person?
JO: Not really.
I say no, but if you listen to my songs, there's a lot of religious symbolism. One of my songs that I play every night, “If God Made You,” the hook is “If God made you, He's in love with me.” I also find myself lately practicing my own kind of Sabbath, turning of the phone and hanging with the fam as much as possible on Saturdays.
MR: Do you believe in God?
JO: I'm an agnostic. I'm a son of an astrophysicist, so I look at it analytically. You can't prove to me there is a God, you can't prove to me there isn't. And at the same time, I love the Judeo-Christian ethic and the values. I would much rather have a religious neighbor than an atheist neighbor.
The last few months immersing myself in the Jewish culture I find I am jealous of the community, kinship, and sense of a higher purpose among Jews. So let's just say I'm still searching, but you're never too old to find God.
MR: Do you believe in an afterlife? Do you think about it at all?
JO: I sure hope so. Fear of death is what drives everything in the culture, in politics, in the arts, in the world. So I would hope so.
MR: What kind of astrophysicist was your father?
JO: So my dad worked at JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 20 years.
MR: Oh, wow.
JO: My mom was a piano teacher. I would go to JPL on Sundays and play Star Trek on their mainframe. The mainframe that took up 20 buildings that would now fit on your watch. And then when my grandfather passed away in the '80s, my dad took over the family business, and he left NASA to go build shopping carts. And I've been working at that business ever since as well.
MR: You've been working at that business ever since?
JO: My whole life, yeah.
Shopping Cart Salesman
MR: You still work? You sell shopping carts?
JO: Of course. We make wire products. We sell shopping carts. I have a call after this with a buyer. I have the weirdest life. It's very strange.
MR: Wait, wait…what?
JO: Yeah.
If you shop at Costco, you use the best shopping cart in the world. And that's our cart.
MR: What's the name of your family business?
JO: It's called Precision Wire Products.
MR: Is that weird?
JO: In a way, it's wonderful because the entertainment business can be a shallow, silly world. When you walk into a manufacturing plant and you see people sweating and making things, you see people start at minimum wage and over 10 years become middle class, people who can't speak English who now are sending their kids to Ivy League schools — you watch the American Dream every day in real time. So I think that's another reason I have a different worldview than most artists because we have to make a payroll and live in the real world. I see the greatness of America, I'm affected by Chinese imports, I suffer the wrath of the California anti-business climate.
MR: Does anyone ever recognize you when you're pitching people?
JO: Yeah, some people do. I'm in Florida right now, and often when I'm on the road, I'll have a meeting during the day with a buyer or a supplier, and then I'll play a concert that night, and many times they come. But I don't advertise it.
MR: Has the opposite ever happened? Has anyone ever ended up at a concert and been like, “Oh, this is the Precision Wire Products guy!”
JO: I have done some Precision Wire Zoom calls from sound check that have freaked out a couple folks.
It’s actually a wonderful thing. My son is 24 years old. He works at the family business, so we have three generations working there. We just opened a new plant in Texas, and as I said, it keeps me grounded.
I love music. I'm blessed to do it. I'm blessed to have people sing my songs back to me. But I also have this other piece of my life that is challenging and equally important. I think the family biz also gives me a little more freedom to do some of these larger projects because if people don't buy my ticket, if somebody doesn't license my song, it seems so trivial to the bigger things in the world.
MR: It reminds me a little bit of this guy Eric Hoffer. He wrote a book called The True Believer, and I think it's one of the best books. It's a short little book about political philosophy about why people become fascists. He wrote it while he was a stevedore. He worked at the docks, and he wrote it in between his breaks.
JO: I appreciate that. I think if you're blessed enough to have a successful career as an artist, it can be a dangerous road. You're surrounded by sycophants and it's a groupthink mentality. And you typically have people running the business of your business who may not have your interests at heart. Now, some people are great businessmen. Gene Simmons from Kiss, he's a businessman first. There are a few folks like that. But again, I think it does give me a different perspective and a different appreciation for America.
Backstage at the Concert for New York
MR: I want to talk a little bit about piano. What do you play on at your house?
JO: My mom, as I said, was a piano teacher. She started me at two years old on our little Steinway in our house. And then when I was 13, she allowed me to quit, which was the best move because I had the fundamentals and it was up to me to continue. And I started writing songs, but I had the proficiency of the piano.
I have a couple Yamahas at my house. I'm not an amazing piano player. I would say I'm a songwriter who plays piano as opposed to outstanding piano players like Ben Folds, Elton, and Billy. But I'm proficient enough to be able to write a song.
MR: Have you ever met Elton John or Billy Joel?
JO: Backstage at the Concert for New York. Every living icon was there. And right before we went out, we were about to go out to play “Let It Be” with Paul McCartney, which alone is an insane statement. I figured I could pick two or three people to approach. I couldn't go run around to everybody. But as a fanboy, I went up to Pete Townshend. I said, "Mr. Townshend, Tommy's been in my CD player for 20 years." He's like, "Yeah, all right, you know." And that was kind of that.
And then Clapton was there. I said, "Mr. Clapton, thank you for everything." He's like, "Oh, you're welcome." Considering his latest statements on Israel I regret I didn't pass him by for Elton.
And then I went to Billy Joel, and I said, "Mr. Joel, you don't know me. I play this song “Superman” and my first concert as a boy was Glass Houses in the '80s. Thank you for everything. I wouldn't be here without you." And he said, "I remember that show, Liberty DeVitto missed three drum fills, goddammit." And I'm like, "Thank you very much. Pleasure to meet you." And off we went and sang “Let It Be.”
MR: That's amazing. Was that one of the most memorable nights of your life?
JO: I would say until Hostage Square, the Concert for New York was by far the most significant and most important thing I've ever done. Just to be able to sing on that stage and look into the eyes of people who've been down at Ground Zero for a month digging through the rubble. And to this day, I still have contacts with the firefighters.
The performance at Hostage Square reminded me a lot of that, looking out at the hostage families, literally looking in their eyes, singing the song, crying with them, seeing how a song really made a difference. I think those two performances probably for me will be the most significant of my life.
MR: Was there anything surprising about being there? Anything surprising now that you’ve really become immersed in Jewish culture?
JO: Here's a great example of what I've learned about the Jewish people. Before the concert at the Hostage Square concert, there was an announcement that I'd never heard before. I played thousands of gigs. I've never heard this announcement. The announcement was this, "In event of a missile attack, everybody please take cover, cover your heads with your hands and seek shelter." And nobody left, not one person left. I was ready to run to the hotel, hide under the bed. No one left.
And so I performed “Superman,” I performed “OK.” And as I walked off stage, the head of the Hostage Forum said, "John, by the way, they're closing the airspace. You need to be in your hotel room in a safe room by 11 o'clock." And it was about 8:30 at that time. So I had my entourage of Israeli and American Jewish people with me, and I said, "All right, you guys, we got to go to the hotel." And they said to me, "But we have a dinner reservation." I'm like, "What? You're kidding." They're like, "No, we have a dinner reservation." I go, "We can't go. We have to go to the hotel." They're like, "We waited two weeks for this dinner reservation."
That’s all I need to know about Israelis. They're brave, they're crazy, they live life every day, everybody knows each other. And I saw that throughout the whole culture. When you’re in Jerusalem and you walk through the market and you see four 18-year-old girls in full uniform with AK-47s, you know something is different here. You don’t see that in America.
I think that ability of Jewish people to live through these terrible events and the massive antisemitism we've all been seeing, but also still live life and have capacity for joy. I tweeted a song of me and Matisyahu singing at MIT. And what I said in the tweet was, you'll notice there are no masks here. Nobody’s wearing a mask. Everybody's smiling, everybody's singing. Nobody's afraid to show their face. And that's what I've really learned about the Jewish people…that they have this fortitude and this ability to find joy in the darkest of times.
Congressman Five for Fighting (R-California)
MR: I read that you're Slovakian by decent.
JO: Yes.
MR: What’s your birthname?
VJOIII: Vladimir John Ondrasik III.
MR: Do you have any cultural practice? Are you connected to your own culture like that?
JO: Not so much. I mean, look, the wire business goes back a hundred years to Slovakian artisans. That's why we make things out of wire. The roots of Precision Wire go back to 1911.
I want to spend more time in Eastern Europe, bring my family to connect with my history. When I was in Poland, bookending my trip to Ukraine, in 2022 I had the opportunity to go to Prague but frankly slept for 24 hours as we barely slept in Ukraine. Going to Israel made me think “Man, I should probably learn a little bit more about my heritage and connect with that because it is important.”
MR: All these songs you’re writing are about tragedies. It's almost like, “Uh oh, John's here…we're in trouble.” Has there been any tragedy in your life that helps you connect with people? Or have you had a pretty easy life.
JO: I couldn't write “Superman” today because I've learned it's pretty easy to be me. But I've met people who suffer real tragedy. Look, talking to hostage families, meeting with Gold Star families, looking them in the eyes…there's no words for that.
MR: Have you suffered any tragedy in your life?
JO: Not to that extent. We've had things happen to our family that are scary.
MR: What's something scary that happened?
JO: While our family was out of town, there was an attempted murder at our house with our housekeeper, and I was told by the FBI that somebody was trying to get me, somebody crazy. So we lived a few months under the auspices of some crazy person trying to kill me. It turned out that it was a domestic dispute, and had nothing to do with me, but we've kind of lived under that kind of fear.
MR: Do you have any stalkers?
JO: None that are dangerous. We've had a few that make you uncomfortable.
MR: How do you tell the difference between dangerous and uncomfortable?
JO: I don't have a great answer. I just hope. But when somebody buys a ticket to every show and sits in the front row and stares at you and never smiles or sings, that will make me a little unnerving.
MR: Does someone do that?
JO: That's happened.
Rob Lockwood: That's just Max's demeanor…there’s nothing to be afraid of.
MR: Yeah, I was just going to say, Rob, you should at least smile a little bit.
JO: But overall, no. Overall, everybody's been great.
MR: Do you have any desire to run for public office?
JO: I've been asked, and I'll give the typical politician answer. I have no desire to run till when I decide to run.
I do think especially over the last few months, I have more impact doing what I'm doing through the arts than I would as a politician. I have a lot of friends on the Hill. I've been working with congressmen from both sides of the aisle on Israel. Joni Ernst is a pal. Mike Waltz is a pal. Tom Cotton is a pal. I enjoy supporting good people, but there's so much that goes into being a politician, like raising money. Once Orrin Hatch took me in his office and played me his tunes. That was fun.
MR: But you are independently wealthy — I’m sure someone has talked to you about it?
JO: I'm secure financially, but I don't have money to buy an election, so I can't be putting my money to an election. We had a group out in Los Angeles years ago called Friends of Abe.
Many politicians came and the relationships came, and more than a few of us were asked, "Do you want to run for Congress? Do you want to run?" It's mostly congressional races because you're probably not going to win a Senate race. And Dean Cain, people like that, I think a lot of us kind of put in our mind, is this something we want to do?
It could happen. I think it would be cool to have a singer-songwriter in Congress who really has no fear of losing an election, just here I am. To me, these latest songs about world events are moral messages and not political ones. When I released "Blood on My Hands,” which was critical of our Afghan withdrawal, the Right loved me, the Left shunned me. When "Can One Man Save the World" that supported Ukraine came out, we debuted on Good Morning America and it was well received by both sides though there was a prominent conservative radio host who called me the devil's assistant because I wrote a song about Ukraine and I used some language that was, in his mind, religious-based.
And when “OK” (We Are Not OK), discussing the moral collapse of our institutions, came out, again the Right was supportive and the Left, the music press, shunned me. That said, since Israel shared the "OK" video I have been working with many politicians, orgs, and influencers from the political spectrum. When you have back-to-back calls with Mark Levin and Debra Messing about unequivocal support for Israel, it illustrates these are right vs. wrong issues, not Right vs. Left.
MR: How long have you been political? Has it been your whole life?
JO: I think so. I mean, look, I was a Reagan guy. He actually sat behind me at a hockey game once.
MR: Did you talk to him when you were at the game?
JO: No, I didn't. I waved at him, but I do a lot of work with the Reagan Foundation, and I know a lot of people who worked with him. That philosophy of strong foreign policy has been my kind of thought. I'm kind of the National Review conservative guy.
MR: Early on in your life were there thinkers or books or magazines that influenced you in your political outlook?
JO: Certainly Sharansky, and I got to actually meet him in Israel a couple of weeks ago.
MR: Oh wow, that's cool.
JO: As you know, Sharansky is Ukrainian. He hadn't seen my "Can One Man Save the World" video that we shot outside of Kyiv in a bombed out Antonov airport. So I literally sat there and showed it to him, and it was very emotional for both of us. The fact that Natan Sharansky was tearing up to a song of mine was surreal and humbling.
MR: When you were 20 you were reading Natan Sharansky?
JO: Yes.
MR: That's a little weird.
Why were you doing that?
JO: Well, I don't know.
MR: You were a rockstar — weren’t you intro drugs or girls or fast cars?
JO: I was into cars, I still have my ‘65 Fastback Mustang, into girls, of course. I never was the drug guy. I mean, I dabbled, but very quickly I was so obsessed with singing and I saw so many voices get destroyed because of alcohol abuse or cocaine.
MR: Do you have a ritual for your throat?
JO: I have a pharmacy that goes with me on the road. I have voice lessons. I warm up and warm down when I'm on long tours.
You take antacids after you do a concert so you don't have acid reflux. You don't do a lot of dairy.
I actually had a tonsillitis problem where they had to go cauterize my throat because I was bleeding to death. I have an ongoing challenge with my voice, so I always have to be aware of that.
MR: How did you discover Sharansky? That's so bizarre.
JO: Probably my dad gave it to me. My dad's a history buff. He's a big freedom guy, and so I think he probably gave it to me. I read The Fountainhead. I read all the books. And again, I was a fan of National Review, and I watched Crossfire.
MR: You should have named yourself Five for Fighting for Democracy Abroad.
JO: Well, in a way, it's kind of what it is. Fighting the good fight. It's really about these simple things, freedom and human rights.
MR: Have you ever gotten into a physical fight before in your life?
JO: I got into a fight in junior high school, but beyond that, I was doing taekwondo, and somebody broke my nose once. Some guy didn't like that I got a point. He was much better than me, so he broke my nose.
Five for Sci-Fi
MR: Where'd you go to college?
JO: I couldn't get into UCLA, which is where I wanted to go to, so I went to USC for two years then transferred to UCLA and graduated there with a math degree. I actually gave a speech there a couple of weeks ago that went viral calling out the administration. UCLA has been one of the most disgusting offenders enabling, appeasing, and facilitating the antisemitic mobs on campus.
MR: Who’s your favorite mathematician or what's your favorite field of mathematics?
JO: Most of those brain cells are long gone, but I'm an Einstein groupie, you know, the Relativity stuff.
MR: You’re interested in astrophysics?
JO: Yeah. I actually wrote a song about Hawking after seeing him speak at Caltech 15 years ago. He rolled down and did his speech, and I felt like I was close to God that day.
MR: Really?
JO: But I love Hawking. Kip Thorne, all the guys who write about the astrophysics and the wormhole.
MR: Are there any book on physics that you enjoyed?
JO: I think A Brief History of Time is a great place to start for someone who’s a layman. And the string theory stuff.
Look, I'm a sci-fi geek, right? That's all I read. I read Asimov.
MR: Did you like Seveneves by Neal Stephenson?
JO: Yeah, I liked it.
I'd have to say the Foundation series by Asimov is my fave, but don’t watch the TV show. It bastardized the whole thing. And there's the Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game, which I love. My dog's name is Ender.
MR: Oh, I read so many of those books — Ender’s Shadow, Speaker for the Dead…
JO: …the best.
MR: You know he's a Mormon?
JO: And also he's not a lefty. He's got a lot of blowback for that. There's a lot of hate for Orson Scott Card. In a way, I feel a little bit of what he deals with when you're not part of the right crowd.
MR: What's your favorite sci-fi movie?
JO: Everybody says 2001. But look, I was in line at Star Wars when I was 14 years old, the perfect age at the Grauman's Chinese Theater.
MR: What did you think about the prequels and what did you think about the sequels?
JO: Not a fan. Not a fan. Especially now that Disney's kind of got a hold of them. I'm an old school guy. Look, Close Encounters of the Third Kind was an amazing movie. I love Close Encounters because it has the five notes, and sometimes during a show, I'll play the five notes just to see if anybody is listening.
MR: Why do you think you're so into sci-fi?
JO: Maybe because my dad was bringing home pictures of Titan's moons when I was eight years old. And I love fantasy. I love imagination. I love Elon Musk. I love his idea of going to the Mars.
MR: Would you sign up to go to Mars?
JO: Hell yeah.
To Serve Man
MR: What about hockey? That’s where the name “Five for Fighting” comes from, right?
JO: Yeah.
I grew up a Laker fan, a L.A. Kings hockey fan, a Dodger fan. I played sports my whole life. Sports is my escape and when the label told me they wanted a band name, I spit out Five for Fighting as Marty McSorley had dropped the gloves twice that day. Frankly, the band name has allowed me to have some incredible sports memories performing at Dodger Stadium for the Kings/Ducks outdoor game, Sunday Night Football on the 10th anniversary of 9-11, All Star games, the Daytona 500. Surreal experiences.
MR: Are you into guns?
JO: I'm not, but for the first time in our lives — we never thought we’d do it — but my wife and I bought a gun and we've trained after seeing what’s going on with the mobs. A Jewish man was killed down the corner of our street. You probably heard about it. That was three miles from our house.
MR: What do you do for exercise now?
JO: I'm a runner and a swimmer. My knees are getting old, but I swim. I try to swim every day. It's my zen. It's my savior.
MR: How long do you swim for?
JO: I swim for an hour. I probably swim about 2000 yards every day. So it's a good workout.
MR: Wait, do you play hockey? Did you play hockey?
JO: After college, I joined a league, and my claim to fame is I scored a goal in my first game. And basically what happened, somebody checked me into the crease, shot a puck off my helmet into the net. But technically, that is my goal because it touched me last. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. I always wonder, "Why do these guys only play 45-second shifts?" And after playing hockey, I've played basketball, I've run a marathon, I've done some athletic things. There's nothing harder than hockey. You skate hard for one minute, you're ready to throw up.
MR: Wait, you played in an amateur league?
JO: Yeah. Just an adult amateur league. Yeah.
MR: Do you floss?
JO: Do I floss?
MR: Yeah.
JO: No.
MR: Never?
JO: Never.
MR: You should probably floss. I mean, I don't tell people what to do, so do whatever you want.
JO: That is the coolest question I've received in two weeks, by the way.
MR: Really? What happened two weeks ago?
JO: Well, I got some good questions in Israel.
MR: What kind of shoes do you wear?
JO: I wear Sketchers. I have one pair of boots that go with me that have been in the war-torn rubble and jet fuel of Ukraine, have stood on the stage at Hostage Square.
MR: What are those shoes?
JO: They're just some old rock boots. I don't even know the brand. They're torn up. I don't bring them on the road because I don't want to lose them. But whenever I play somewhere significant, they're like my superpower shoes. I run in Brooks. But if I don't have to wear shoes, I'd rather not
MR: Who's your favorite comic book superhero?
JO: Batman.
MR: But you wrote a song called “Superman.”
JO: Yeah.
MR: What's the last song you listened to?
JO: “Brandy (You're a Fine Girl).”
MR: Who's the first singer-songwriter that comes to mind right now?
JO: Well, we just talked about them, but James Taylor. I don't know why, but James Taylor.
MR: And what song of his comes to mind right now?
JO: “You've Got a Friend.”
MR: Sci-fi author?
JO: Asimov.
MR: Are you a Twilight Zone fan?
JO: Yes.
MR: Favorite Twilight Zone episode?
JO: “To Serve Man.”