Five for Fighting
Vladimir John Ondrasik III, known professionally as Five for Fighting, is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. He is best known for his piano-based soft rock, such as the top 40 hits "Superman ", "100 Years", and "The Riddle". He also had a string of moderate hits on the adult contemporary charts in the late 2000s and into the 2010s, including "World" and "Chances".
Ondrasik has recorded six studio albums, one EP, and several live albums as Five for Fighting. Ondrasik's song "Superman" was nominated for a Grammy in 2002. The singer has had songs featured in 350 films, TV shows, and advertisements. As of 2025, Five for Fighting's music has over one billion streams.
Early years
Ondrasik was born in Los Angeles, California, a child of a musical family. He is of Slovak descent. His mother was a piano teacher who taught at John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, Los Angeles, where he graduated. He learned the piano as a child. In his teens, he learned to play the guitar and started to write music. While he also learned to sing opera, taught by Ron Anderson, he soon decided that he wanted to be a singer and songwriter.While in college, Ondrasik continued to pursue music in his spare time. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in applied science and mathematics.
Career
Early musical career and John Scott (1988–1995)
After graduating from UCLA in 1988, Ondrasik became associated with the glam metal scene. He befriended Whitesnake bassist Rudy Sarzo and later formed a band with Scott St. Clair Sheets, best known for his work with Pat Benatar, called John Scott. Ondrasik later described the band's genre as "pop metal", comparing their sound to Bon Jovi. John Scott signed a management deal in the early 1990s, but any hopes of mainstream success were shattered with the rise of grunge. "We had some good songs and had some interest and were about to do a big management deal and then this little band called Nirvana came out and the whole hair-metal thing blew up," said Ondrasik. Despite this, several John Scott recordings have survived.Three John Scott songs co-written by Sheets and Ondrasik appeared on a 1997 arena rock album from Sheets' band, St. Clair, which also featured Sarzo. Ondrasik did not perform on the album, but received writing credits for the re-recorded John Scott songs "After the Fire", "Shadow of Myself", and "Turn the Wheel". Sheets and Ondrasik would collaborate again much later, in 2008, when Ondrasik provided vocals for Sheets' song "Fly Me Away".
After John Scott parted ways, Ondrasik says he then "went back to the piano, where I belonged."
Ondrasik spent the early 1990s playing singer-songwriter gigs around Los Angeles. He signed with an EMI music publisher, Carla Berkowitz, who discovered him in a bar on Melrose and Vine. Ondrasik and Berkowitz later married.
Becoming "Five for Fighting" and first album (1995–1999)
In 1995, Ondrasik signed with EMI Records. He adopted Five for Fighting as a "band name" that same year at the request of EMI executives, who found Ondrasik's name difficult to pronounce. EMI also had concerns that the male singer-songwriter was "dead" in the mid-1990s. According to Ondrasik, the label "loved" the name Five for Fighting even though it sounded like a "heavy-metal band". "Five for fighting" is an ice hockey expression that means a five-minute major penalty for participating in a fight. Ondrasik is a lifelong fan of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team.Five for Fighting's first album, Message for Albert, was released by EMI in March 1997. However, EMI Records' American division closed that June. Although the album itself had already been released, there were no singles from Message. "Bella's Birthday Cake" was intended as the lead single, judging by the existence of radio promos and demos featuring the song. The song "Ocean" appears alongside "Bella's Birthday Cake" on some promotional cassettes, suggesting it was viewed as a potential second single.
AllMusic called Message for Albert "intelligent and well-crafted", concluding that it was "a promising debut that sadly lost its shot when EMI spontaneously combusted after the record's release."
After the demise of EMI's American branch, Ondrasik tried to have Message for Albert re-released through Capitol Records or Virgin Records, but was unsuccessful. Five for Fighting left EMI in the aftermath and recorded demos of "Easy Tonight" and "Jainy", both of which were re-recorded for 2000's America Town album. Capitol Records eventually did re-release Message after the success of America Town.
Breakthrough and peak commercial success (2000–2006)
Aware Records' Mark Cunningham made initial contact with Ondrasik. Cunningham then passed Ondrasik's demos to the label's new A&R Steve Smith. After a discussion with Aware head Gregg Latterman, Smith met with Ondrasik and set up a deal in partnership with Columbia Records.His second album, America Town, was released on September 26, 2000. In addition to 10 all-new songs, America Town included two re-recorded songs from the ill-fated Message for Albert album. "Easy Tonight" became the album's lead single in 2000. It received moderate airplay and peaked at number 26 on the Adult Top 40.
The second single, "Superman ", was a commercial success, reaching number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 1 on the Adult Top 40. The song became an anthem after the September 11 attacks and Ondrasik performed the song at The Concert for New York City on October 20, 2001. "Superman" was nominated for a Grammy in 2002.
After the success of "Superman", two more songs were released as singles – the title track "America Town" and "Something About You" in 2002 and 2003, respectively – but neither song charted. While America Town did not reach the top 50 of the Billboard 200 chart, the album was certified Platinum in 2004.
His third album, The Battle for Everything, debuted at number 20 on Billboard 200 chart in February 2004. Some versions of the album were paired with a bonus CD, a five-song EP called 2 + 2 Makes 5. Battle included the single "100 Years", which reached number one on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and stayed at number one for 12 non-consecutive weeks. "Devil in the Wishing Well" was the album's second single, reaching number 23 on the Adult Top 40. A third single, a cover of "Silent Night" from the 2 + 2 Makes 5 EP, reached number 2 on the US Adult Contemporary charts.
The Battle for Everything was certified Platinum by the RIAA, making it Five for Fighting's second straight Platinum-selling album. It received mixed reviews from critics, with AllMusic praising the record's "nice craftsmanship" and noting that it was "one of the more interesting, detailed" records in its genre. However, AllMusic was critical of the "pompous narcissism" of the lyrics, calling Ondrasik "deadly serious". Todd Goldstein of PopMatters also criticized the album's "pomposity", but enjoyed "Angels and Girlfriends" for its "unexpected chord changes" and "uncharacteristically quirky" lyrics. He singled out "The Taste" for its surprising energy, writing that during "the only pure guitar-rocking song among the twelve midtempo ballads, John Ondrasik screams. It's a raucous, Howlin' Pelle Almqvist moment of sheer unselfconscious exuberance." Another writer said Ondrasik seemed like a "contradictory figure" for his blend of romanticism and irreverence on The Battle for Everything: "There's '100 Years,' the first single, a meditation on the poetry of time passing. But then there's 'The Taste,' whose delicate opening gets pulverized by slashing electric guitar and a raw, screaming vocal." According to Ondrasik, when recording Battle, he and producer Bill Bottrell "were ambitious to the point of absurdity. If we wanted drama, we'd get a thirty-piece orchestra. If we wanted a rock edge, we went after it with reckless abandonment."
Continued mainstream success (2006–2009)
Two years later, the album Two Lights was released; this became his first career top 10 album, debuting at number eight on the Billboard 200 chart in August 2006. Its first single, "The Riddle", became Ondrasik's third career top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 40. It reached number three on the AC charts and number seven on the Hot AC charts. The second single, "World", reached number 14 on Hot AC charts, and the music video has been used to raise funds for various charities and as a theme for NASA's International Space Station.Five for Fighting released three live albums in 2007: Rhapsody Originals in January, iTunes Exclusive in June, and Back Country in October.
His fifth studio album, titled Slice, was released on October 13, 2009, and appeared on the iTunes top 10 albums on the first day. The album was produced by Gregg Wattenberg. Academy Award-winning composer Stephen Schwartz, who penned the songs for musicals such as Wicked, Godspell and Pippin, co-wrote the title track, as well as the track "Above the Timberline". On July 21, 2009, the first single from Slice, called "Chances", was released for digital download. "Chances" was featured during the end credits of the hit film The Blind Side. "Chances" reached number 11 on the Hot AC radio chart.
Career downturn and new record label (2010–2013)
By the early 2010s, Five for Fighting's "commercial success was in the rearview" and Ondrasik was not able to "reclaim his pop star status" from the 2000s. Five for Fighting and Columbia Records parted ways in 2010 after ten years. In a later Tedx Talk about songwriting, Ondrasik revealed that he was "dropped" from Columbia after one of his singles, "Slice", turned out not to be a hit. He even wondered whether he was "done" with the music industry. However, Wind-up Records signed Five for Fighting and re-released the Slice album.Shortly after Five for Fighting left Columbia, two compilation albums were released. One was a best of album called The Very Best of Five for Fighting. It was released in 2011 and featured 14 songs in chronological order of their recording, beginning with "Bella's Birthday Cake" from 1997 and ending with 2010's "Slice". The other compilation album, also from 2011, was a bundle of Five for Fighting's two Platinum-selling albums, America Town and The Battle for Everything.
Five for Fighting's sixth studio album, Bookmarks, was released through Wind-up and Aware Records in 2013, peaking at number 54 on the Billboard 200. "What If" was the album's lead single and it reached number 29 and number 28 on the Adult Top 40 and Adult Contemporary charts, respectively. Even though "What If" charted, Ondrasik says he realized that the hit singles phase of his career was coming to an end while promoting the song in 2013.