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. 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" (a re-written version of "On the Streets Again" by John Scott). 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. 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. The second single, "
Superman (It's Not Easy)", 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 (see
Philanthropy below). 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 ("Superman", "100 Years"). 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. 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.
Changing the field of play (2014–2020) As Ondrasik entered his fifties, he decided to "change the field of play" Five for Fighting also placed several songs in TV shows, such as "All for One" on the
one hundredth episode of
Hawaii Five-0, "100 Years" in final scene of the final episode of the TV series
JAG, and "Born to Win" on
American Ninja Warrior. In 2020, Ondrasik re-recorded an unplugged version of "All for One" that was featured in the series finale of
Hawaii Five-0. Most prominently, Ondrasik was the featured artist in season three of the
CBS drama
Code Black, covering
Gary Go's "
Open Arms" in episode one. He also appears on screen performing the song. Ondrasik's cover of "Open Arms" appeared on the Billboard's "Top TV songs" chart in April 2017, which lists the ten most popular songs on TV each month. Ondrasik's other songs for
Code Black included "Hero" and "This Fire", while his 2000 song "Superman (It's Not Easy)" was performed by Briana Lee in the season three finale. In 2018, Ondrasik recorded a song entitled "Song For The Innocents" for the end credits of the film ''
Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer''. Some of Five for Fighting's notable live performances in this era included the Lincoln Center Series, American Songbook, in February 2017, the 2017 National Memorial Day Concert and parade, and a TV special called
Christmas Under the Stars.
Recent activity (2021–present) In the 2020s, Ondrasik released a trio of songs about current geopolitical events. The first of these was "Blood on My Hands", a 2021 song critical of the
withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. The song prompted media discussion over censorship in music following YouTube's banning and subsequent restoration of the song's graphic music video on its platform. In March 2022, Ondrasik released "Can One Man Save the World?" about the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, which he then performed on July 9, 2022, in
Kyiv with the Ukrainian Orchestra. Ondrasik said: I was honored to perform my new Ukraine tribute song Can One Man Save the World? with the Ukrainian Orchestra in the ruins of the Antonov Airport—in front of the Ukrainians' beloved Mriya, the world’s largest cargo plane that Russia destroyed at the outset of the war. In sharing this musical collaboration on such hallowed ground, I saw firsthand the fortitude and grace of the Ukrainian people, who whether playing a violin or driving a tank, will not be deterred by
Putin's atrocities and aggressions. On January 18, 2024, Ondrasik released "OK" in response to the
October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by
Hamas and the subsequent global rise in
antisemitism. He referred to the song as "a call to action to stand for good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, and call evil by name without 'context' or equivocation". In 2025, Ondrasik performed on season six of
The Song (episode "Five for Fighting"), accompanied by a string quartet. Later that year, the performances were released as a live EP.
Musical style and influences Ondrasik has been variously compared to other piano singer-songwriters like
Elton John,
Billy Joel,
Dave Matthews, and
Ben Folds, albeit "while still maintaining a harder rock edge exclusive to Five For Fighting." His more
heartland rock-oriented tracks have been compared to those of
Bruce Springsteen and
Tom Petty. Ondrasik lists
Queen (and
Freddie Mercury in particular),
Steve Perry,
Stevie Wonder,
Elton John,
Billy Joel, and
Prince among his musical influences. Ondrasik makes heavy use of
falsetto vocals in his music, with
Variety describing this as "a pleasant two-tone voice -- a tenor for setting up a situation and a higher register for driving a point home".
PopMatters wrote that Ondrasik sings in a "
Vedder-lite croon", with an "instantly recognizable falsetto", also referring to it as "that kickass falsetto", while
AllMusic compared his voice to "Eddie Vedder singing a lullaby." Ondrasik's earliest surviving recordings, as the singer in John Scott, feature louder and raspier vocals, with
Consequence writing that he was "pretty convincing as a metal frontman." In addition to piano, Ondrasik plays the harmonica and acoustic guitar. He also plays electric guitar on studio recordings of some songs. While Five for Fighting's singles prominently feature piano, his early albums contain songs with traditional
hard rock influences On his style at the turn of the millennium, when "Superman" became his first mainstream hit, Ondrasik said, "I kind of fancy myself as a rocker and a rock guy and here was this ballad." Even though the song was softer than his style at the time, Ondrasik is "so grateful that I had that chance to be heard with that song. It will always be my firstborn." Five for Fighting's style became softer in the 2000s, with
AllMusic calling this era of Five for Fighting an "adult alternative
mother-ship" and "full-blown soft rock". Five for Fighting's live performances take a variety of forms: sometimes Ondrasik appears alone, switching between acoustic guitar and piano. Five for Fighting sometimes appears with touring musicians on bass, electric guitar, and drums. Five for Fighting also began playing orchestral shows in the early 2010s, often accompanied by a string quartet; Ondrasik has also appeared with the backing of full symphony orchestras for these shows. He often covers songs like "
American Pie", "
Rocket Man", "
Message in a Bottle", and "
Bohemian Rhapsody" at the end of live performances. Five for Fighting has released a steady stream of live recordings since 2007, including seven live albums and EPs.
Professional speaking In 2012, Ondrasik became active on the public speaking circuit. Presenting on themes of creativity, entrepreneurship, and collaboration, Ondrasik uses his music, life as a musician, and working in the family business to highlight his message. He has presented at
TEDx,
The Salk Institute,
American Cancer Society, and
Virgin Unite amongst others.
Legacy and awards Referring to Five for Fighting's success, AllMusic called Ondrasik "one of contemporary pop music's most enduring balladeers". In 2025,
The Plain Dealer called Five for Fighting "a defining voice in American
pop rock".
Business Insider has referred to the artist as a
two-hit wonder for the songs "Superman (It's Not Easy)" and "100 Years". Five for Fighting has released two Platinum-selling albums,
America Town and
The Battle for Everything, and received one
Grammy nomination and one
AMA nomination. ==Philanthropy==