Five For Fighting Interview - John Ondrasik - Denver Concert 2025

Interview with Five For Fighting

Posted on May 3, 2025
by Aimee

John Ondrasik, the singer-songwriter behind Five for Fighting, has built a career on heartfelt lyrics and soaring melodies that resonate with fans across generations. Known for hits like “Superman” and “100 Years,” Ondrasik (pronounced On-Draw-Sick) combines introspective storytelling with piano-driven rock in a way that’s both deeply personal and universally relatable. I was able to get on Zoom with him recently and he was super generous with his time. In this interview, he opens up about his songwriting process, the two types of tours he’s doing in 2025, and his charity efforts beyond music.

Five For Fighting Interview

Aimee:
Very nice to meet you. I just wanted to first really quick mention that you were the very first national act that ever approved me to photograph 16 years ago.

John:
Oh, my goodness.

Aimee:
I know. I wanted to thank you for that. You kind of changed my trajectory a little bit, or was one of the people that helped me with that, so I appreciate it.

John:
Wow. Well, whenever you want to come shoot…

Aimee:
Crazy right, right?

John:
Of course, you’re welcome.

Aimee:
Yeah, so thank you. OK, first thing I want to bring up is I know about your tours, that you have two kinds of tours this year. First, I wanted to hear about the Symphony Tour and all the aspects of that. I’m sure it was really difficult to organize, and it sounds like you have a lot of people playing with it. If you could just tell me a little bit about that.

John:
Sure. It started about, geez, almost 15 years ago when I was asked to do full symphony shows, 36 piece orchestra, which for me was so invigorating and just incredible to have that orchestra behind you. Not only does it add a new dynamic to the popular songs, I’ve been blessed to work with incredible composers throughout my career. And I have many songs that I don’t play with the rock bands, “Devil in the Wishing Well,” “Nobody,” “Two Lights.” To be able to pull those out of my catalog and have these amazing arrangements with these songs was so exciting for me. And we saw the audiences really appreciated it. So, we wanted to take it to smaller venues and you can’t bring an orchestra everywhere, right? So we started this quartet thing about 10 years ago, and they’re really just incredible musicians, and we have this kind of experience in smaller venues with the Quartet, and I love it.

Aimee:
And then the flip side?

John:
Yeah, and then during the summer, we’ll put out the Five for Fighting rock band again with world-class players. Pete Thorn plays guitar with me. He was with Soundgarden and Melissa Etheridge. Again, I have the best of the best players, and I’m so grateful. It’s fun to get outside and do the rock shows. So it keeps everything fresh as we keep kind of rotating through the different permutations.

Aimee:
I’m in Denver, actually. You’re playing the Arvada Center. Have you ever played there before? I can’t remember.

John:
Well, I don’t believe we have. I’ve played so many venues over the years, but I don’t believe we’ve played there, so that’s exciting.

Aimee:
Yeah, it’s a great venue. It’s a really nice outdoor venue. I think it’d be perfect for you. And then – also, I read that an enormous amount of your music has been used in TV shows and commercials. Like 350 times or something. I mean, how did that start happening? Was it on purpose? Because I personally feel like music can totally transform the mood in a show and things like that.

John:
You’re exactly right. I think if you combine the right image with the right music, it’s exponential, the kind of impact you have on the viewer. It initially started with people just starting to license “Superman” for their television shows. But then I started writing to the script. People would say, hey, we need an end title. Hawaii Five-O reached out and they needed a special song for their hundredth episode. Or a movie, there’s Chicken Little, they’d say, we need a song. And it’s really fun because number one, you don’t have pressure to write a hit, and you have a starting point. Here’s a scene, here’s a mood. And you look at it, and you interpret it your way. And it’s like a fun homework project. You do it and you do one song, and it’s great. And I think my songs kind of have a certain sentimentality that fits various tones.

Aimee:
Do you tap into an emotion in the scene and then try to draw that out?

John:
Yeah, kind of. I’ll talk to the producers, and ask them tell me what are you trying to say here? What’s going on? And sometimes in their description, there’ll be a title or a phrase, and then I’ll watch if they have it to the point where there’s something to watch. I’ll watch it, and I’ll just kind of have a gut reaction.

Aimee:
That’s really cool. Well, and then how does that compare to when you’re writing your own music? How does that change your, I don’t want to say “real,” but your natural songwriting process?

John:
Yeah, it’s much more different. When you’re writing your own stuff, it comes from personal experiences or pain or joy or what you see. So it’s very personal. So certainly 99% of what I do is just write a song, whatever I’m thinking, whatever I’m seeing.

Photo: Carpe Tempus Photography

Aimee:
I know that you have strong humanitarian efforts across the board and have also written a lot of music for various causes. Is that something that just is a natural spark – or I guess how does that come into play in terms of your songwriting?

John:
Well, I think if you’re blessed enough to have a couple songs that people know, it’s great to use those songs to aid organizations for their fundraising or for awareness. One group of folks that I write songs about that it’s very important to me is our troops, our military families. Pretty much every album I make, I have a song on there that either recognizes or tells a story about our soldiers. But I’ve also written a song about one of my mentors, Augie Nieto, who was a fitness champion in the nineties. He lived the American dream, and tragically he got ALS in his late forties. He created a charity called Augie’s Quest, and I ended up writing a song about Augie, because he’s so important to me. So yeah, when it strikes me and there’s something I’m passionate about, I’ll write it. I mean, that’s kind of what we do.

Aimee:
I saw that you had performed the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.

John:
Yeah, we did the telethon four or five years. Of course, ALS is a neurological issue, as is muscular dystrophy. So going on the Jerry Lewis telethon was wild to be behind the scenes on that thing, it was…

Aimee:
Just real quick, one of our very best friends had muscular dystrophy, and unfortunately he died of COVID. So, thank you for doing that as well. But yeah, I’m sure it was crazy to do that telethon.

John:
I’m sorry to hear that. But yes, it was a lot of fun. And yeah, I mean, it was such a part of American kind of culture for decades, I was honored to be part of that.

Aimee:
And then the other thing I read about was Let Music Fill My World. Tell me about that organization.

John:
We started this a few years ago, and it was really, for me, it was a pay it forward for my mother. My mother was a piano teacher, and when LA Unified cut music funding when I was in elementary school, my mom came in, volunteered, and started putting on full musicals at our school. And if you talk to the kids in that class, 40, 50 years later, they tell you important that was for them. They didn’t all go into music, but it was really important for them. And we see, unfortunately, across the country, so many school districts cutting music funding and we know it’s important. It raises test scores, it teaches kids discipline, and you have less behavioral issues, less dropout rates. So what Let Music Fill My world is really about getting a music teacher in every American school.

To take that national, we launched what’s called the Music Matters Challenge, where people can make videos, talk about a mentor of them for music and sing a little bit, or play a little bit. People do all different creative things. And then at the end of the challenge, which is coming up quickly, we post the five finalists and the winner wins $10,000, but more importantly, helps us to pick another school in need and provide a music teacher.

Aimee:
Incredible. I know we don’t have much more time, so just one more fun question. Do you have any favorite bands or musicians from any part of your life that might surprise me who you love and people might not guess that you love?

John:
Well, it probably won’t surprise you. My first concert was Billy Joel.

Aimee:
My cat is named Billy Joel!

John:
I love your cat.

Aimee:
Me too. She is hiding right now but usually she is a Zoom favorite.

John:
[laughs] So yeah, Billy Joel’s Glass Houses, so of course, all the seventies, all the great songwriters. Elton, of course, James Taylor. Joni Mitchell…

Aimee:
That doesn’t surprise me, though.

John:
But also I love rock. I found Steve Perry’s voice teacher as teenager, and I studied with him and I found out all the rock singers were trained classically. So I sang opera, and, of course, Freddy Mercury folks like that, the great singers. So I really kind of gravitate to the great songwriters and the great singers like so many people. And there’s a reason you still hear those songs every day, right. The Beatles, of course, but also Led Zeppelin. I love all of that.

Aimee:
All great choices. And then my last question is, do you have any Denver memories from when you were here that you can think of? Anything that you’d like to share particular for your fans here?

John:
Well, first of all, I have a lot of Denver memories that have nothing to do with music. Our families would always go skiing in Denver, and whenever I’d come to town, I’d take a little drive out to Boulder. My first song, “Easy Tonight, actually kind of broke out of Boulder, KBCO up there, I’m sure you know them.

Aimee:
Of course.

John:
And of course, being one of the most beautiful cities in America, I always try to schedule a day off. But we just love the fans, the people there are great. They love their sports, they love their outdoors. If it was up to me, I’d be living in Colorado for sure.