6-25-24 *INTERVIEW* 'Five for Fighting' Has Been Public and Steadfast in his Support for Israel

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
John Andrasik on the show. Thatsong is called Okay parentheses we are not
okay, and John wrote that inthe aftermath of the heinous attacks in Israel
on October seventh, decrying, well, you know what I'm gonna let John
put it in his own words.So John Andrasic, otherwise known as five

(00:20):
for Fighting awesome hockey reference that tookme a little while to figure out.
Welcome back to the show. It'sreally good to see you again, hier
Ross, and hello Colorado Avalanche fans. Exactly. So, all right,
I want to start off with twodifferent aspects of the Israel thing. One,
I've heard you make some comments thatI agree with wholeheartedly about how well

(00:45):
unfortunate it is too kind of wordthe fact that so many people in the
entertainment industry have been silent, which, look, there are some crazy people
like Susan Sarandon out there who areon the wrong side of everything, But
what about the silence from musicians andactors and so on in the part of
the world that you live in.You know, I wish I could give

(01:08):
you a good answer. It's reallya historic shame. At the end of
the Okay video, the last imageis Martin Luther King saying silence in the
face of evil is complicity, Andif Hamas is an evil, I don't
know what is. And not onlydo you have many of these kind of
celebrities who like to get on theirsoapbox and lecture us about human rights,

(01:30):
either silent or supporting Hamas, youhave Jewish icons afraid to speak out and
condemn Hamas. You don't have tolove Israel, but why can you not
say, release the hostages, stopusing Palestinians as human shields. It's a
historic shame. It's something in themusic industry will never recover from, and

(01:55):
it's really depressing. But I thinkit goes to the nature of the song.
We are not okay in so manydifferent ways in this country. We
are broken, and the fact thatpeople are afraid to stand up and say
simple things really shows, frankly,where we are. I chose that particular
small section of your song for thefor the Bumper Music intentionally, and it's

(02:23):
where you're you're singing basically, howcan you look at yourself in the mirror?
And I wonder that same thing too, with with all these people and
the you know, we had wehave one of the big pride parades in
the country here in Denver every year, and it was just this past weekend
and a bunch of these uh youknow, I call them antie Israel.

(02:43):
They might call themselves pro Palestinian,but I call them anti Israel protesters showed
up to interrupt the pride parade.You're not allowed to do anything without these
people, which is different than thesilent people. So these are the aggressive
people, reminding you that there areAmericans who don't know the difference between right
and wrong. Yeah, I mean, really, what these folks are It

(03:04):
really doesn't Israel's is kind of thetalking point. But what many of them
are, whether they are believers orindoctrinated, they're anti America, They're anti
capitalism. I was in Israel acouple months ago and I talked to Natan
Sharansky, that famous Israeli kind offreedom fighter, and he said, twenty

(03:27):
years ago, somebody asked him whatis the biggest threat to the Western world,
and he said American academia. AndI think we're seeing that come to
light because these kids have been indoctrinatedfor years that America is evil a presser
versus a presse, and now alot of those kids that kind of graduated
twenty years ago are now presidents ofHarvard, presidents of UCLA, running tech

(03:50):
companies, running the New York Times. So what we see in this insanity
when you have you know, proPalestinian, pro Hoomaus people, you know,
queers for Palestine, it's really acult. Of course, we know
if they protested anything in Gaza orsaid anything about gay rights and Gaza,

(04:14):
they would be tortured and beheaded.So it's so insane the world we're living
in. But that's why I thinkit's important that people stand up in every
role. You don't have to bea singer, you don't have to be
a radio host in our daily livesto stand up for freedom and do the
right thing. Because I do thinkwe're on this tipping point of civilization,
because that's what the song's about.It's about those who want to save civilization

(04:38):
against those who want to tear itdown. And frankly, I think we
may be losing that battle. Orwe're talking with John Andersick. You probably
know him as five for Fighting,Platinum album selling, Grammy nominated a rock
Star, Superman, probably the mostfamous song. We shot so many great
songs. Apparently the bad guys.Really, I don't like you and are

(05:00):
incredibly afraid of you because shortly afteryou did a concert in Israel they attacked
with rockets, so clearly they knew, they knew you were there, they
knew that you were speaking up.But seriously, it's one thing to be
in America and say the great,true things that you are saying. It's

(05:20):
a different level to say I'm goingto go to Israel in the middle of
a war and do a concert.And for the record, although it shouldn't
matter, John's not Jewish, Sowhy'd you do that? Well, initially
I went to meet with hostage families, meet with Israeli artists to do some
collaborations, meet with some of theidea of soldiers. Had no plans of

(05:43):
performing at Hostage Square, but itjust so happened that every Saturday night they
have hostage families speak at Hostage Squarefor the country. And they asked me
to sing Okay and to sing Superman, and it was very humbling. I
had my twenty four year old sonwith me, who sat at the table
with me when we met with hostagefamilies, many of them who had children.

(06:05):
My son's age. I thought itwas important for him to experience that.
But as you said, no expectationsof being there. When I ran
A bombed Israel. It was certainlyit was scary, it was unnerving.
But I got to tell you aquick story about Israelis. After I performed,

(06:27):
we walked off stage and the headof the Hostage forum said, Hey,
at eleven o'clock, you got tobe in your hotel in a safe
room because they're closing the airspace andit's about eight thirty at night. So
I had my Israeli entourage and I'mlike, you, guys, we got
to go to the safe room.We got to go to a hotel right
now. And they said, butJohn, we have a dinner reservation.
I'm like, what are you talkingabout. They're like, we've been waiting

(06:48):
for this dinner reservation for two weeks. I'm like, Iran is bombing,
do you understand? But that's justas Raelis. They're able to like find
joy in the darkest of times.They live life a little crazy. But
basically, at eleven o'clock I wasin the safe room, they were at
the bar, and I Ran launched. I ran launched their drones. So
what can I tell you, ohmy gosh, did I did I hear

(07:11):
you say that you played some musicwith or sang with an Israeli musician at
a concert there. I met withmany of the Israeli superstars, a guy
named i Eaton Reichel. But itled to, actually, what we're starting
to do is we're going to thesecollege campuses that have been infested with these
anti Semitic mobs, kind of facilitatedby their presidents, and we're performing on

(07:34):
campus. The first one was amonth or so ago. We went to
MIT right down on the quad.Mattis Yahoo, me, Eaton Riichel,
some other folks. You know,we had two thousand students there. Nobody
was wearing masks, and we're takingthe offense on this because we know we're

(07:55):
in the right. These Jewish kidshave been under siege for over a year,
and also kids who aren't Jewish whoare just are saying so so yeah,
we have some some plans to takethe fight to these campuses, do
the right thing, sing with Jewishartists, non Jewish artists, Ukrainian artists,
the Iranian dissidents, and use thearts to fight this battle. Because

(08:16):
it's not gonna be one through bullets. It's gonna be one from changing minds,
and no better way to do thatthan from the arts. I know
you don't really care about this nextthing I'm gonna ask you, but I'm
gonna ask you anyway. Uh.You you live in California near a lot
of people in the entertainment industry who, as we spoke about before, tend

(08:37):
to lean left and not seem tobe particularly principled. And you're out out
here with this very aggressive ethical stance. Uh, And do you do you
care? First of all, hasit had any impact on friendships? And
and if it has, has yourwould your thought then be well they must
not have been that good a friendto begin with? Or is it?

(08:58):
Are your friends all only the kindof people who would like, want and
expect that from you? Or howhas this impacted you in that way?
You know? I think throughout mycareer people realized I'm, you know,
kind of not part of that group. Think. You know, I'm certainly
not a rabid right leaning person.I look at myself as a centrist,
common sense. I have some viewsthat maybe lean a little left, lean

(09:20):
a little right. But I havesome dear friends who are you know very
on on the left. Sometimes theylook at me and say, how can
I like you? How can yoube my friend? But we have conversations,
and when you talk to people andyou share your ideas, they're like,
you know, we kind of wantthe same goals. We just have
different ways to get there. Butsince October seventh, that dynamic has changed,

(09:43):
especially with many Jewish folks on theleft. Yeah, who who marched
with African Americans, who who havestood up for human rights and have been
abandoned, And so they're having secondthoughts. And a lot of the folks
I've been working with on these Israeissues, many are on the far right,
many are on the far left,because it's not about right versus wrong.

(10:05):
It's not about right versus left,it's about right versus wrong. And
I'll have a day where I talkedto Mark Levin on his show and I
talked to Deborah Messing about something we'redoing. And you can't get further apart
than those two on the political spectrum. But they both have a certain core
common sense and understanding that this isnot political, this is moral, this

(10:30):
is good versus evil. So Ithink in a way it's brought many folks
together who never thought they would befighting the same fight, and I think
that's a healthy thing. I'll justadd a little to that, and you
can tell me what do you thinkI'm wrong? But it seems to me
that one of the things this hasdone in terms of American politics has cause
some kind of fissure on the kindof far left between Jewish members of the

(10:58):
far left and non Jewish members ofthe far because the ven diagram of the
overlap between pro Palestinian and far leftis a lot and there are lots of
far left Jews, but a lotof them now, including people I know
here in Colorado. The way thefar left has reacted, not being able
to say hamas is bad, iscausing them to rethink a lot of things

(11:22):
politically. I don't mean they're goingto become conservatives, right, but they
might just move a little bit awayfrom that most extreme part of the left.
Do you want to add anything.It's not just the far left.
I think President Biden gave a speechjust get put out a statement just last
night about the attack on the synagoguein Los Angeles. That's big news,

(11:46):
and he did not use the wordhamas. He did not use the word
Palestinian. He just said, youknow, being anti Semitic is bad.
Can't even say the names of thepeople who are doing it. I have
dear friends who are hardcore leftists,could never, in their admire their minds

(12:07):
imagine voting for a Republican much lessDonald Trump. And I was sitting there
with them last night watching Game sevenof the hockey game, and they said,
we're going to the dark side becauseof how President Biden and many on
the left, Chuck Schumer, we'renot talking about Rashida Tlebs. We know
they're crazy, you know the youknow tonight we'll have an election in New

(12:33):
York and Latimer will will, youknow, take out one of the Hamas
caucus. But it's the fact thatmany of the mainstream Democrats, or what
people think is mainstreams, have reallybecome in many ways Hamas appeasers and cannot
say simple facts that I think hashas really woken up many folks. Now

(12:54):
it's really it's not going to makemuch of a difference in the election because
most Jewish people are in New Yorkin California, those states aren't going to
be flipped. But I do thinkthere's a lot of people kind of re
evaluating their core ideologies on seeing howwe've responded, not just to Israel,
but to Afghanistan, abandoning our allies. You know, we've seen so many
things over the last four years thatjust questions who are we as America.

(13:16):
It's not about right or left.So I think you're exactly right. I
think people are reevaluating their kind oflife premise, and sometimes it takes something
like October seventh to do that.I can imagine just last thing on this
and I'm gonna ask you two morequick questions. I can imagine in a
close selection that a swing in theJewish vote could be exceedingly impactful on the

(13:39):
overall outcome, in the sense thatthere's a pretty decent Jewish community around Philadelphia
and a pretty decent Jewish community inthe suburbs of Detroit, and those are
states that are important and could beclose. So we'll see, all right,
two other things. We got aboutfour minutes left, So you're about
to go on a new tour.And by the way, if you're just
joining, we're talking with John Andresick. That's that's for you. Mandy,

(14:03):
otherwise known as five for Fighting,He is of course, a platinum selling
artist, Grammy nominated and all that. So you're gonna go on a new
tour. You got some fabulous musicianstraveling with you who have played for The
Stones and Don Henley and Melissa Ethridgeand all this. But dude, I
do not see Denver on your list. What's going on? How do we
fix this? I'm mad at theNuggets because they were the one team that

(14:28):
could take out the Celtics. Nowyou know, I'm a Laker fan,
so I'm still a little annoyed thatthe one team that could take out the
Celtics kind of went out early toDallas. But look, we will be
We've probably played Denver, you know, more times than anywhere except for Minneapolis,
because not only do I love thecity, I love playing in the
winter so I can go skiing orI can go fishing during the summer.

(14:50):
We always schedule at the last show. But yeah, we will be there,
going out with the boys. Asyou said, incredible rock stars.
I'm honored to play with them.We'll be out all summer with the rock
band and then in the fall we'llbe doing the string quartet thing again.
And I'll certainly get to your neckof the woods sooner than later. But
it's the best. You know,they're my friends, they're my family.

(15:11):
It's the locker room. And what'smore fun than, you know, singing
some songs on a summer night andhaving people sing them back to you.
Yeah, fantastic. All right,Well, I can't wait to see that
on your tour schedule and then havea bourbon with you before or after the
show. All right, last lastthing. We have about two minutes left.
So I'm talking with John via zoomso I can see him, and

(15:33):
there's a whiteboard behind him. Sowhen we sat down, I said,
dude, what's going on with thatwhiteboard? And you told me what your
family business is and I had noidea. So what's your family business.
Our family business has called Precision WireProducts. It was started in nineteen forty
six by my grandfather. My dadhas run at Virgie's almost fifty years.

(15:54):
And our claim to famous. Wemake the best shopping cart in the world.
If you shop at Costco, youuse are shopping cart. It's amazing.
I've been working here my whole life. I've have these two lives.
One is a music world and otherin business manufacturing and the blessing of it
Ross is that we get people thatdon't speak English. They start at minimum

(16:15):
wage, and I watch them growand become middle class citizens, put their
kids through elite colleges and live theAmerican dreams. So maybe that's what inspires
some of these songs because I seeit every day and my son works here.
My dad still runs the show,and it keeps me grounded. And
I'm talking to you right now fromground zero at Precision Wire and next time

(16:37):
your role that shopping cart think ofme. You know, that explains a
lot, though, as to whyyou are so much more in touch with
reality than a lot of other youknow, quote unquote stars. I shouldn't
put it in quotes. You're you'rea rock star, but you're actually a
businessman capitalist, So no wonder you'remore in touch with the real old That

(17:00):
makes a lot of sense, Mandy, did you want to did you want
to say hi to John Five forFighting? Hi? John? I actually
saw five for Fighting many years agowhen I was younger and more enthusiastic about
dancing, and they put on agreat show. Well John and the people
backing him. Yeah, yeah,that was in I think Atlanta, Georgia,
maybe what year would that have been. I don't ask me, don't

(17:22):
ask me years. I'm not talkingabout that. So roughly, when did
your when did your first big hitcome? John? What year was that?
Well? Superman was two thousand andthen one hundred Years was about two
thousand and four. So was itin that and that air there was?
It was after. It was afterthe first album and right before the second
album. Because when you guys saidwe're gonna play a couple of songs from
our new album, I got upto go get a beer. I'm so

(17:48):
sorry to go to the bathroom.Yeah, I'm so sorry about that.
But I did enjoy it. Itwas and I think it wasn't Atlanta based
on that time. There you go, So twenty two years ago a little
at this point trying to make Johnfeel old. I feel old right now
talking about because I was youthful andexciting and full of joy, you know,
Oh my gosh, John Andersick,you almost by for fighting. Thank

(18:11):
you for not just your moral courage, but you went to Israel in the
middle of the war, and Iwill always be grateful for that and U
and I appreciate your time and yourfriendship as well. Always a pleasure Ross
look forward to that bourbon you gotit. Thanks John,