John Ondrasik (Five For Fighting)

Five for Fighting lead singer John Ondrasik talks new song and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're on with Mario Littleez. It's up. Mario Lopez joining
me now on Zoom the Grammy nominated singer and songwriter
of five for Fighting John Andrasik. Welcome to the show.
Thanks Mario, thanks for having me my pleasure. I wanted
to make sure I pronounced your name correctly. Nailed it
the one I bet right. I bet you had a

(00:20):
bunch of different versions of that. Thank you. UM. New
song is called Can One Man Save the World? Uh?
What was this inspired by the events in Ukraine? Or
had you been working on it for a while? No?
I think like many of us, when Putin invaded and
our first act as a country was to offer Zelinski
a plane ticket and he said keep your plane tickets,

(00:42):
send me some stingers that we thought this was a
different kind of cat and so it was certainly inspired
by his actions the Ukrainian fortitude, but it's also pleased
for the rest of the world to uh to support Ukraine. Certainly,
if Putin devours Ukraine, it's not going to stop there.
So there's a lot of aspects to the song, but
certainly it's started with him in his leadership, and you
actually had the opportunity to perform with the Ukrainian Orchestra? Right,

(01:06):
how did that come together? That was surreal. I'd actually
been working with some groups that were evacuating abandoned allies
in Afghanistan and one would save our allies. And when
the war broke out, they moved many of their operations
to Ukraine, and uh I had an opportunity to to
to go to Poland and play the song with the

(01:27):
Polish orchestra and say if our allies had a lot
of relationships with Zelinski in the ministry, and they said,
how would you like to do this in Ukraine? And
uh I couldn't believe it. I thought it would never happen.
But there we were in the rubble of the anton
Off Airport performing with this incredible Ukrainian orchestra in front
of the valued symbol of Ukrainian independence. There their airplane,

(01:51):
the Maria that Putin destroyed at the outside of the war. So,
as you can imagine, it was surreal. It was humbling
and incredibly inspiring. I bet Man, I bet wouldn't experiences
um any other new music in the work, because it's
been a minute since a full length album. You know,
I keep talking about doing an album I don't know
these days. You know, I've written two songs in the
last year, one called Blood in My Hands about the

(02:13):
withdrawal from Afghanistan, this new song about the Lynsky Ukraine.
Neither neither of them did I take any joy in writing, um,
which I didn't have to. But we'll see, we'll see
where events go. I'm kind of just writing when the
moment strikes me these days, and and hopefully shining the
light on the folks that deserve it. Well, you're taking
the band out on the road for the first time

(02:33):
in a decade. Uh, what made you want to perform
with the group again? You know, I've been doing a
lot of symphony shows, free quartet shows. But you know,
you probably have some of the similar sentiments sentiments as
I do with this pandemic. You know, we talk about
doing things all the time. All I'm gonna do this,
I'm gonna do that. We'll get there. But now it's

(02:53):
about let's do it, and so we put the boys
back in the bus. We gotta show tonight here in
Cape Cod. It's it's so fun. Just the music is great,
the sharing the music is great, but just the kind
of you know, the comrades, the boys, the hang the
just being with people you love is the best of
the best. So we're out here. We've got another couple

(03:14):
of weeks ago and it's been a blast. That's awesome.
Good for you and I agree. Yeah, those uh, a
couple of years without hearing live music. I love to
hear live music and there's nothing like that energy. What
what's the set list gonna look like? Well, we play Superman,
of course, we play a hundred years the riddle songs.
Folks know. I'm actually playing the new song can One
Man Save the World with the audio of the Ukrainian Orchestra,

(03:36):
so people can get a sense of what I heard
that day outside of Kiev. And we have a few surprises.
If you covers the verb Pie are opening for us.
You were probably two years old when they had their
hit like I did. But they have their song their Freshmen,
so it's you know, it's back to the future, but
certainly songs from the present as well. You like to cover. Well,

(03:58):
tonight we're doing Queen. You know it's uh, it's it's
a toughie, but I got the A list musicians here,
so we'll we'll do some Queen tonight. Um, you know,
I'm a classic rock guy right, born and raised in
the seventies, right there with it what has come from there,
So you'll usually hear something from that genre. Love it,
love it. Um you have kids, right, I do too, Yeah,

(04:21):
twenty one and twenty two. How that happened? I don't know.
Boy girl, Oh so full on adults now, so you
don't necessarily have to take them on the road with you.
They're kind of doing their own thing. They were with
me last night in New York. They came in for
the show. But yeah, we're empty nesters, and uh, they're great,
They're wonderful. They inspire me and and they're offering their
own ways. My daughter is doing music too, so who knows,

(04:43):
but uh, you know, it makes things a lot better
when you can share things with your family. Absolutely absolutely,
I agree. Um, you mentioned Superman, and it's hard to
believe it's it's been more than two decades since it
hit the charts, but it still resonates today. Um. It's
weird how music or certain art right can be come timeless.
You never really know. It just sort of has its

(05:03):
own life. It is. You know, you write a song,
you put it out there certainly and never could have imagined,
you know what Superman became, certainly around nine eleven and
the concert for New York. But as a musician, you know,
I think, uh, the highest kind of praise and and
what you're most grateful for is that the song stand
the test of time. And Uh, I'm blessed to have

(05:25):
a couple that people still seem to to put in
their home movies or listen to. And and now these
new these new songs about kind of the world. So yeah,
I still pinched myself when I hear my song on
the radio, and Uh, as I said, I've been very
blessed to be able to do this for two decades now. Yeah,
that's awesome. I was just curious, Um, when you do
a song and you and you your name it's Superman,

(05:46):
do you have to get permission from Marvel? Or is
that or d C. Actually I'm sorry, or or d
C or is there any sort of um logistics involved there?
Or they're not really Uh, there's an not because it's
a title. It's part of the popular culture. I didn't
realize when I wrote that song that they were like
seven or seven or eight other Superman songs. If I did.

(06:09):
I probably never would put it out, but I'm lucky
for me. There was a lot of that. But you
know anything in the title, Um, it kind of goes
around the kind of copyright rules. Uh so, so yeah,
it's it's free reign. And uh good for me because
I never thought about that. I didn't didn't want to
get in trouble. Yeah, well, yours is the only superman
I know. Well, thank you, congratulations on everything, and good

(06:31):
luck out on the road and listen, um you can.
You can one Man save the World on iHeart Radio.
Get tickets and tour dates over it on with Mario
dot com. John, thanks for hanging out, Maria, my pleasure.
Thanks for having me, buddy, Take care, Take care Man
with Mario a little bit