Giving Others Strength to Speak up: John Ondrasik

you know silent majorities become silent minorities if nobody speaks up and for me making a record was really how you made a statement John andrasik also known as Five for Fighting is a Grammy nominated recording artist who released several number one hits in the early 2000s including a single Superman which became known as a 911 [Music] Anthem recently he's come back into the spotlight for his songs about the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal Russia's invasion of [Music] Ukraine and the Hamas October 7th attack on [Music] Israel many in the music business particularly with Israel have historically shamed our industry for all time because they're afraid to speak out with common sense moral Clarity one thing that I think folks don't realize especially on the right is how critical the Arts are to changing culture this is American thought leaders and I'm Yan Kell John andrasik such a pleasure to have you on American thought leaders thank you for having me Yan you've written songs about Afghanistan and the withdrawal about Ukraine the war in Ukraine about October 7th um but back in the day you you wrote that those song that I remember that you wrote was Superman yeah which kind of became a 911 anthem of sorts yeah it's surreal you know sitting here in New York City across the street from Madison Square Garden you know whenever I I come to town I flash back to the concert for New York my career was a fluke uh I'm a 15-year overnight success um I grinded in the music business for a long time and when we released Superman uh nobody wanted to play it it was a piano song it was a ball this was the age of Lilith Fair boy bands um Grunge music and it was an anomaly it wasn't 1977 with Billy and Elton so um Superman was kind of um a miracle to begin with just that it kind of caught on and then of course I was actually in England on 911 and like everybody else you know I called everybody I knew in New York I sat there for 10 days no planes were flying I landed in no hair I literally kissed the tarmac to be back in the United States and I didn't realize um what Superman had became particularly in New York City n DC recognizing the heroes of 9/11 and still to this day uh I keep in contact with many of the firefighters and their families but I think it showed me at a very young age um why music can matter um you know we talk about Fame Fortune hits tickets but across the street that night when I I played the concert for New York and I saw the who blow the roof off Madison Square Garden and give all of those people who'd been down at Ground Zero digging through the rubble um an Avenue to release to cry to sing to scream I saw that night like okay that's why this it was seen how music can move move mountains move messages give people solace in way nothing else can so you know maybe 25 years later you know seeing that song and other songs still connect that way um I think as a songwriter it's it's very humbling that's amazing you know and it we were just talking earlier you you alerted me that that Five for Fighting actually comes from hockey yeah so you were you were a hockey fan you were yeah you were in Toronto in 1993 when I think that was one of the few times that the the Toronto Maps made the playoffs I remember that that was I was that was my first year of University and it was a big deal but yeah Wayne grety and Doug Gilmore the one of the greatest series of all time and in 1999 the record company said as I said you know the age of the singer songwriter was not happening so they wanted a band name and I sarcastically said how about Five for Fighting because I went to a hockey game and there was a fight and Marty murly and Bob Probert expecting to hate the name and they're like we love the name I'm like you're crazy it sounds like I should be opening for Metallica what's going on here and to be honest with you Five for Fighting is you know probably more appropriate now you know fighting some of these cultural battles with these songs when I look at your choices of causes I guess yeah right they don't fit neatly on the political Spectrum yeah we kind of expect them to though these days don't we yeah I mean to me the latest three songs every time I write one I hope it's the last one they're moral messages they're not political messages um blood on my hands the song about um the Afghan withdrawal it's basically you don't promise somebody to have their back and you abandon them to terrorists you don't leave your your citizens to terrorists to me that's not a political message it's a sane one uh with Ukraine um you know when Putin invades Ukraine um we are America we're supposed to stand for those you know fighting for the freedom against tyranny um October 7th when people Massacre uh rape pillage desecrate innocent people um that's a bad thing there's no but so to me these are moral messages and the fact that they're taking politically for many is understandable in this tribal world we live in but um that's how I look at it before every song in my concerts I kind of give a little context when I talk about blood on my hands and I talk about um the withdrawal I say look um if a Republican president did the same thing the song would remain the same only the names would change but in this tribal World um of course it's a bit of an anomaly how do you see yourself in this in this crazy world where everything is hyperpolarized I just look at myself as um a person with the worldview that happens to write songs for a living we all have opinions and to be honest with you Yan it's it's a bit of a tight rope for me because I've always had a bit of a disdain for celebrities who get on their soap box and lecture us about politics as our moral betters which so many in Hollywood like to do but there's also this tradition in songwriting and music to write about the world around you the protest songs of the 60s of course so um in a way I guess I look at myself as as in some weird way as a modern-day kind of protest songwriter which I never aspired to but seeing some of the response to our culture to these issues and seeing the fact that many in the music business particularly with Israel um have historically shamed our industry for all time because they're afraid to speak out with common sense moral Clarity I think that also gives me some energy to to say something because so many are not well yeah so that's so so does that not make you sort of ultra cancelled or something oh yeah yeah when I wrote the Afghanistan song virtually everybody said you cannot put that out it's canel culture and and um and I thought twice about it and and to be honest with you if I was 30 years old trying to make a career in the music business I don't know if I would have put that song out I'm fortunate to be on the end of my career I have some security I've never been part of that crowd anyways but look the honor of my career has been to perform for our troops uh me and Gary sise My Pal we go on the Uso tours and um we wouldn't be sitting here without our military families and our our veterans and our our active military so I had a lot of friends that were gutted disgusted after our withdrawal um and talked to so many after the song came out it got so crazy that I started getting calls from people trapped in Afghanistan so I embedded with many of these amazing Green Beret ngos save our allies project pineapple project Exodus relief who were literally saving people so through that I met a lot of these Heroes and um on these operations I didn't go to Afghanistan but I was you know liasing with people on the hill and getting to know them and when they saw General Millie and general Austin come out and say hey what a great success Afghanistan was that broke a lot of Hearts it broke my heart because we expect presidents to do things that can be a little crazy a little political but but we always thought that if it got really bad the adults in the room our generals would say the right thing they'd be honest with us and when they didn't I think that shattered a lot of hearts and a lot of minds and thousands of emails from Afghan veterans um from veterans in general I still talk to to many you know that stuff is so powerful that the negative stuff in a way it just kind of rolls off your back over a Time often you'll have a conflict like Ukraine be kind of reduced to you know Russia Ukraine to be reduced to the kind of the big the geopolitics of the situation political Lan but it's actually very much real people yeah and your point is I think here that that they're is there people fighting for their freedom they're fighting for their survival I mean one thing we're trying to do through the Arts uh and the the Arts I think is critical in this civilizational culture war and that's really what it is it's not Hamas versus Israel um it's civilization against those who want to tear it down look the UN is much of a problem as Hamas you know Iran China Putin they're all connected so one thing we're doing is we're putting together um collaborations between Ukrainian artists Israeli artists Iranian dissidents um Palestinian dissidents Taiwanese dissidents Chinese dissidents um to really kind of make the point that this is all one thing I mean you go back to Reagan and it's the Access of Evil it's still the Access of Evil if we try to compart compartmentalize it um we're not doing ourselves a service it's it's evil actors um really trying to tear down our Western way of life and the freedom and liberty that we that we love and typically with music you know you have many artists writing about the world around them and you can look back in time and listen to them and kind of get a sense of the history uh you listen to the music of the 60s you get a sense of the history um perhaps the fact that nobody's writing about these issues says something about what's happening right now and the fact that many Jewish icons are afraid to say anything about October 7th um says something about where we are the fact that so many kids have been indoctrinated on Tik Tok and many artists are spouting the oppressor woke genocidal propaganda maybe that does say something about where we are as someone with two kids in their 20s and look at the world they grow up in that's another reason for me to at least be one voice having one point of view that hopefully will give others some strength to speak up one thing that uh I think folks don't realize especially on the right is how critical um the Arts are to changing culture um we talked last night on the phone about um my old buddy Andre Breitbart um who always said you know politics is Downstream of culture so if you don't include um the Arts which I call soft power in the culture War you're going to lose and I think we're seeing that John we're going to take a quick break right now and we'll be right back and we're back with Grammy nominated recording artist also known as fer fighting John andrasik so I know you brought your guitar or I guess it's your daughter's guitar here in New York right yeah um why don't why don't we uh do a little Nostalgia here let's go back to the future okay yes my daughter Olivia who is actually in London as we speak so she allowed me to hang in her apartment and she has this beautiful little uh this little Taylor of course Superman was written on piano but um sometimes it's interesting to hear it on uh a different instrument so here's a little bit of uh Superman I can't stand fly I'm not that [Music] naive I'm just out to find better part of me I'm more than a bird more than a plan more than some pretty face beside a train it's not easy to be [Music] me wish that I could cry fall upon my knees find a way life but a home I'll never see let me sound don't get I he even heroes have the right to believe how maybe the St won't you conce Heroes have the right to Dream It's not EAS to be healing and up and away from me now it's all right you can all sleep sound tonight I'm not crazy or anything I can't stand fly I'm not that naive man one man to rise the clouds between then KN I'm only man in a for a r she taking for cry night on this one W Street only a man funny red sheet looking for special things inside of me inside of me inside of me it's not easy to [Music] be [Music] me you know one one line that you really struck me is I think it was Heroes get to dream too or something along this line right yeah interesting so tell me a little bit about how it is that you got to you know end up in Ukraine during the war it was uh kind of a wild experience actually when K one meant save the world which is the song I wrote for Ukraine came out um I wanted to do something uh frankly for Poland because Poland you know as you know had rescued taken in four million refugees so I had a friend who's very connected in the hill and and in the state department and I said I got this idea why don't we go to Poland uh and let's sing can woman save the world with the Polish Orchestra she called back in a few days and she said um how would you like to go to Ukraine and sing the song with Ukrainian Orchestra and my first thought was what and I said how could that work she goes well a million things have to happen but we could get the orchestra to key for 3 Days uh let me work on it start writing the arrangement and so I did and she said and don't tell anybody you can tell your wife but no one else we need operational security that's has to be like a a mission so me and my guitar uh me and my quartet um MD violin player we're in the back of the van traveling across the country and scribbling in the back of the van and our laptops arranging can man save the world and in the last show uh I came off stage and got an email with a plane ticket to krackow for the next day and uh so I had a long talk with my wife that night and I'm very grateful she let me go and off we went uh flew to krackow um got a car to take us to the border the guy drove 200 miles an hour getting us there didn't speak a word of English pushed me and um two veterans who were part of the production team off we didn't know what to do so we started kind of walking the mile to the to the border and everybody nobody's coming this way nobody's going that way and got through the Border we're supposed to get a car that wasn't working because all the gas was being used by the military eventually we got to laviv and boarded a train with some us congressmen than Crenshaw and Brian Fitzpatrick they let us board their train which I'm so grateful and we got to Kei and um typically you're supposed to play underground you see people performing in the Subways because of all the Air Raids but um we were informed that there's a chance you can perform at the antinoff airport which hangers the Maria the symbol of Ukrainian Independence which is an airplane flew during covid flew the Soviet space shuttle it's on their army patch and uh eventually we're allowed to do that we put um the quartet you know in front of this plane that had been destroyed by Putin in the outset of the war we put me in puddles of jet fuel blown up tanks frankly still some things there that probably I won't talk about because kids may be watching We performed this song and shot this video uh outside of ke and every member of that Orchestra had either had a family member killed missing were on the front lines my interpreter was an 18-year-old girl who 6 months earlier was a bartender now she's in the Army so and tell me about the hostage Square performance yeah in the middle of Tel Aviv there's a big square that they've turned into an Outreach forum for the hostage families in many ways a shrine and a stage for the hostage families to speak every every Saturday night um thousands of people come it's broadcast on television uh there's exhibits there's even a kind of tunnel that that um is an example of a Hamas tunnel that what the hostages would feel and you walk through the tunnel and there's this screaming and so they have all this really powerful um moving scary important stuff right before I performed they made an announcement that I'd never heard before Yan the announcement was in event of missile attack everybody please take cover um find a safe shelter and cover your heads there were 10,000 people there and I was like ready to run to my hotel and hide under my bed nobody left and so I performed um Superman I performed okay it was very moving reminded me of the concert for New York frankly literally from me to you people holding signs of their children who are hostage it reminded me of looking out and met the Square Garden of those family members who lost loved ones um and when I came off and was hugging some hostage families the the hostage Forum person said hey by the way um you need to be in your hotel by 11:00 because they're closing the airspace and it's very likely Iran's going to attack and this is about 8:30 and my son was with me too I said uh hey you guys you know you heard right they're like yeah we heard let's go let's go we got to go to the hotel right now true story they look you know this one guy kind of David said but John we have a dinner reservation I've waited two weeks for this dinner reservation and that's who these Israelis are they have a way to find joy in the darkest of times they have this fortitude where things that would make us cower kind of rolls off their back and so I'm like well maybe can we at least have dinner at the hotel so we go to the hotel they're all drinking talking and I'm looking at my watch I run to my room at 10:30 I tell my son to get in the and of course at 11:00 I ran a tax and uh I called them I'm like all right guys you know you know they're tacking I'm in the safe room and they're like the drones will take eight hours we're at the bar I'm like that's that's who they are um so that whole experience really was was powerful for me to see kind of the fortitude and attitude and strength of of the Israelis similar to the ukrainians and I think Americans we could learn something from these folks I think we've lost a little bit of that John this has been you know absolutely fantastic thank you for coming to visit us but a final thought as we finish you know I think um not to go Fanboy on you too much but I I appreciate your guys Mission and not just um kind of pick whatever partisan peace is going to grab you likes that day I think that really is something that is critical for our nation to get back to a place where we are okay we're not perfect we'll never be perfect but we're certainly not okay and we need to to get back to where we are okay and um I think your mission is is an honorable one well John andrasik it's such a pleasure to have had you on thank you thank you all for joining John andrasik and me on this episode of American thought leaders I'm your host Yan Kell