A Conversation with Five For Fighting’s John Ondrasik – HuffPost 9.11.13
Mike Ragogna: Hey John, how’s “Superman”?
John Ondrasik: [laughs] Mike, I’m doing good!
MR: So you have a new album, Bookmarks. How did John Ondrasik approach this one creatively?
JO: Well, it’s always odd to describe your record, right? I promise I won’t go to the Musical Journey Guide, but honestly, for me, every album is typically the best ten or eleven songs I write in the two or three-year period between records, when we’ll write a hundred songs. This record is certainly more modern, production-wise and melodically, than my last couple of records. My last record, Slice, was certainly a throwback to the seventies, which is kind of where I came from. I was raised on those great singer-songwriters from the seventies, but at the same time, it’s still kind of my experience, my observation, and the typical Five For Fighting lyrical sentimentality. I’m just thrilled that there’s another record, Mike. With every record, I just want to make another one, and if you had told me twelve years ago I’d be on record number six, I would have said, “You’re crazy.” I feel very fortunate to still be doing it.
MR: Now, your first album was with the EMI family, but somehow, you made it over to Sonyland.
JO: It’s the typical music business story of working fifteen years to try to get a record deal, finally getting a record deal, getting signed by the president of the label at EMI, who was a producer named Davitt Sigerson, who appreciated what I did because he produced Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes.
MR: And I believe he’s a novelist and all sorts of things now. Yeah, Little Earthquakes was such a great record.
JO: Yeah, he understood the piano player/singer-songwriter. Lo and behold, he was the president of the label and for me, it was the perfect situation; you spend a year making the record and you put the record out and within weeks, EMI Records closes. There I am, my first experience and I have to get a real job, the dream has ended. Nobody wanted to pick up that record, Message For Albert, but short story, I was in my mid-to-late twenties and I had to make a living. I kind of cut off my hair and put on a suit and started working for a living. My girlfriend became my wife, and she was a music publisher; without my knowledge, she was still sending out my songs. There was a song called “Easy Tonight” that a little label named Aware records liked. They signed me and said, “We don’t have much money, but why don’t you go make a record and we’ll see what we can do with it?” Me and a guy named Gregg Wattenberg, who was an aspiring producer, spent a year making theAmerica Town record for no money in a broken down studio going in at two in the morning. We recorded “Easy Tonight” and another little song called “Superman” that he liked, but I wasn’t sure that we should put it on that record. The nice closing to that circle is that obviously, America Town did really well and “Superman” became what it did. Gregg became the head of A&R for Wind-Up Records and, coincidentally, I am on Wind-Up records for this album and for the first time in ten years, Gregg and I were able to make a full Five For Fighting Record together. So it’s kind of a blast from the past for me and it kind of rejuvenated me and my musical soul and I’m very excited about recording and songwriting again. So it’s been a full circle. But yes, that Message For Albert record is very obscure because it was only out for about two weeks and then the record company of The Beatles went upside down. That was my introduction to the reality of the music business.
MR: Who knew? Like you said, for the label of The Beatles to devolve into what it did was so sad.
JO: It was sad. We could probably spend three hours just lamenting the music business. And that was when they were still making money!
MR: Exactly.
JO: Now it’s just very depressing. But that just reinforces how fortunate I feel to be able to make another record on a label who can get it out there and have this kind of reach. Who knows what’s going to happen with it, but again, I think six records later, from Message For Albert to Bookmarks and everything in between I’ve been very fortunate, man. I’ve lived the dream.
MR: Do you feel like there’s been growth from album to album?
JO: I hope so! It’s always hard to edit yourself, but I certainly believe that on Message For Albert, listening back, I think there were some good songs and there were some terrible songs, and I think the range of good to bad has shrunk, hopefully, over the years. It’s always hard to try to craft songs that you’re proud of that can be popular songs. For every album, of course, you want to have a hit to drive the album so you can make another one, and it gets harder and harder to do that. But I always pride myself in trying to write songs that can stand the test of time and are not so trivial that they come and go. I pay as much attention to the thirteenth song as I do to the song that’s going to be the single. I try to make records in the true tradition of records instead of just, “Okay, this song will drive the record, let’s make twelve bad versions of the single.”
MR: Yeah, so true.
JO: So I’ve always tried to do that but it’s hard for me to judge, “Am I getting better?” I sure hope so because that’s kind of the reason I still do it. If you’re not getting better or at least exploring new avenues, you become the redundant stereotype of yourself, which is hard. It’s hard for bands who have success on the radio to continue to have success, because a lot of times, you do go back to the well and try to regurgitate what you did before and usually that doesn’t work. So hopefully, there’s enough in this record that’s new that makes it interesting and exciting for people. But there’s enough of the tradition of what I do well where it can have a certain amount of commercial success and meet the fans’ expectation of me getting better that they enjoy and are excited about.
MR: I love it. John, you’ve got a couple of anthems on this album, “What If” and “Stand Up.” You’re looking long range, at bigger pictures. Would it be fair to say that’s the kind of artist you are, always kind of looking at a bigger picture?
JO: I would hope so. I’m a songwriter, right? You’re supposed to provide your observation and, hopefully, there’s a certain cultural observation that goes beyond the kind of narcissistic self-interest that we songwriters tend to write about. Certainly “What If” speaks to a view I have of the culture right now. I think we are a very divided country, I do believe we live in a world of labels, whether it’s based on ideology, religiosity… Go down the list and we have certain stereotypes that we go to. I’d like to believe that we are truly individuals and perhaps if we understood each other’s experiences better, we’d find we had more in common than we thought. That certainly speaks to what I see in the culture today. There’s a lot of emotion, there’s a lot of anger, there’s not a lot of people talking and trying to find solutions. Out of that frustration, a song popped up called “What If?” A lot of people will listen to it and think it’s a relationship song and apply it to themselves that way, and with all of my songs, that’s fine. It’s always been that way. But hopefully, with some of my songs like “Chances” and “100 Years” and “Superman,” it’s a little more macro than the one guy who’s suffering or asking a question.
MR: I like the concept of looking at “What if?” and I can’t really think of any other song that did tackles what you did in that song except maybe “What If God Was One Of Us?” What about some of the other songs on this album?
JO: Let’s take the two extremes. You mentioned “Stand Up,” which, again, is a very modern song for me. I think the typical Five For Fighting fans might be surprised because it’s pretty poppy, it’s pretty modern, but it still has that very simple sentiment of “Stand up because you’re falling down.” I do think many Americans feel unhappy with the state of the nation or the state of their lives, and it’s a simple Emerson’s Self-Reliance. “You’re the only one who can get up. You have to make that decision.” For me, it made sense on this record because when I got dropped from Columbia after ten years, it was kind of like, “All right, either you’re going to get up and do it again or you’re going to fold up the tent, thank you for the memories, and go do something else.” So it did fit my experience, and I do like that it is something new production-wise. The other song that seems like the polar opposite to me is, “I Don’t Want Your Love,” which is a very classic, could come right out of the seventies simple song that you have to wait three minutes to get to the punchline, to get the meaning of the song. That’s really what I’ve done and that’s been my tradition. So those two songs, I think for me, kind of stand out a little bit. They’re two of the songs that I like a lot. Then a song that most people probably won’t talk about because it’s a song that’ll never get on the radio is the last song, a song called “The Day I Die.” Again, it’s live piano/vocal, and like I said, it’s a song that’ll never be on the radio, but as a singer-songwriter and someone who prides himself on trying to write good songs and not just swinging for the radio, I’m very proud of that one. Again, I think my favorite songwriters don’t end up on the radio or sell a ton of records sometimes, but it was important for me to put a song on the record as a statement of, “For you folks who really care about musicianship and songwriting, at least I’ll take a swing at it for you.”
MR: With Bookmarks, it seems like this is a bigger swing than the last few records. Are you more energized because of this particular mix of people and this particular batch of songs?
JO: I think you’re right and I think if you talked to Gregg, he would say that a typical Five For Fighting record has one or two songs to drive the record commercially, one or two songs that aspire to be hits and then a bunch of indulgent Ondrasik songs.
MR: [laughs]
JO: He’s like, “Maybe it would be better if we had three or four songs that could maybe drive the record and kind of eliminate some of Ondrasik’s manic attempts at relevancy artistically. I think this was a nice hybrid because with Gregg’s attitude of “Let’s really make the best record we can and it’s not about you trying to be Leonard Cohen or whoever you want to be,” and me saying, “Every song has to be really good and I have to like it and make it the best we can,” I think that’s why it took three or four years to do this record. And I agree with you, I think it is a bigger swing and I have no idea how it’s going to do commercially. Frankly, for a guy like me at this point in my career and with radio the way it is, it’s going to be really hard. At the same time, as my last single “Chances” said, if you don’t swing, you’re not going to have a chance to do something special. So I agree with you. I think it is a bigger swing and I also think it’s a reality of “Hey, at this point, every record could be my last record.” At least at this level. If we’re going to do it, let’s make sure that we put everything into it. I think this is the result of that mindset.
MR: Or next year at the VMAs, you can try to top Miley Cyrus’ performance.
JO: You know, it’s so funny and unfortunate that it’s become this boring trend to shock, right? And usually, it’s through some explicit sexual outburst or something, and it’s so pedestrian, it’s so tired, and usually employed by these entertainers who have little talent or nothing to contribute to the conversation. But in the culture, it’s all we talk about, and we’re consumed by it. I wish I could just take off my clothes and sell a million records but nobody wants to see me do that.
MR: [laughs] But you could be the first to do it, and everyone after you would be said to have employed “Ondrasiks.”
JO: Exactly, exactly. It is sad, and as a music fan, I’m very frustrated with the current state of things. I’m sure you are, too, someone who’s an A&R guy trying to find artists who could provide careers and talk about the state of the culture through their music. I don’t hear many songs that we’re going to be hearing ten years from now, and that’s frustrating.
MR: Yeah, I’m like you, I like singer-songwriters and the level of integrity that they try to bring to their music and to culture. I think that we had a good foundation for that in the late sixties and seventies, but then came disco, which was, I guess, a relief from the seriousness. I think it’s unfortunate that we’re in another phase where “message” doesn’t matter.
JO: Well, me too, but again, you’re preaching to the choir, but that doesn’t mean we’re wrong.
MR: But it might just mean we’re older cats. On the other hand, I see how it’s difficult to contribute anything less than sensationalized products to stay relevant in a Kardashian culture. And given the state of the music business, how does an artist keep their energy up anyway? Like, how do you stay energized?
JO: That’s a great question, and maybe one that I should answer to my therapist. It’s a real battle and especially when you have a certain amount of success you want to continue to achieve that. When you don’t… We’re all human, right? It’s still a shock to the system and it’s depressing and as grateful as I am for the success I have, it’s harder and harder. Every artist, I don’t care who you are, goes through it. Now sure, it’s nice to be Bruce Springsteen and be an icon who can still go play arenas, but I can guarantee you he’s still pissed off he can’t get on the radio. James Taylor, Elton John, Billy Joel, my favorite artists, everybody goes through it. So they have the luxury of being icons who can go play concerts and do that, but for the rest of us who are kind of in-play in the last decade and are kind of teetering, it’s emotionally challenging and it does drain a lot of energy from you. I think there are some things you can do. I think social platforms really help, knowing that you can reach out to people on Twitter and Facebook and that there is an audience for what you do. It may not be as large as it used to be, but these people probably care more and most of these folks will probably hear your song and buy your single. I think you kind of do it for them and also you have to find reasons to do it for yourself. For me, I really enjoy writing songs, I enjoy making records, I enjoy working with people I like, and you have to recognize that and you have to kind of switch your mindset from “Okay, what is success? Is success getting better as a songwriter? Is success enjoying your life? Or is success having a number one single?” If you can’t do that, you’re going to be pretty depressed because we all hit that wall. I hope I have hit songs, because when you have hit songs, you can do a lot of other stuff and raise your profile and it’s fun.
But that’s great question and I don’t know if I have an answer for you because it is one I look at, and there are days where I go, “Maybe I should hang it up because it’s a grind and it’s not fun and I’ve had a great career.” But to this point, I’ve found the energy to do it and the thing that really does it, to be honest with you… Mike, last night I had a radio show down in Palm Springs, I drove down to Palm Springs, a hundred people were there. You play a few songs, you play “What If,” and then you take pictures for an hour and these people walk up to you and they have stories of how your songs affected their lives. They have a comment on how they just heard “What If” and what it means to them. You get that personal interaction and that personal feedback, and you’re like “Okay. It’s good. I see why we do it,” and my own insecurities and all that stuff is a little shallow, so maybe I should back up and appreciate what I do and that I can do it and that I don’t have a real job.
MR: [laughs] I understand. And you are a bit of an authority on this because how much more important or bigger or touching could a song like “Superman” be? I know that at this point, you’re probably like, “I wish people would stop talking about “Superman,” but on the other hand, it really impacted a lot of people because of how it was manipulated into being some sort of anthem for 9/11. However, I was affected by it before that. I thought that was a very touching song that stretched the concept of “Superman” nicely. Anyway, you have one of those classic songs under your belt that can be argued helped the country heal. Not everybody gets one of those, “If it all ended tomorrow, you’ve made a cultural contribution” records. How does that feel?
JO: In the big picture, it certainly feels great, and I really appreciate you mentioning that “Superman” was resonating before 9/11. A lot of people, especially a lot of press like to essentially “blame” “Superman” on 9/11, but the fact is, it was meaningful to people before 9/11; it was meaningful to people around the world without the context of 9/11. But like you said, to be able to have a song that really helped the country is overwhelming and as terrible as the atrocity was, as a songwriter, it’s wonderful to be able to contribute in that way. You’re right. After “Superman,” nothing will ever attain that meaning again, no matter what I do, how many songs I write, how many singles I have or records I sell, and that’s fine. I do appreciate that if I never did anything else, that would be something to take pride in. And I do take pride in that, but at the same time, we are like athletes. The game is today and even though we may have won the championship five years ago, we want to win today, and that’s just human nature.
MR: And that’s a big what-if, so to speak, situation: “What if my new album is better than anything I’ve ever done?”
JO: Yeah, exactly.
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
JO: Definitely milk the social platforms. I think as frustrating as it can be within the major labels, music is being consumed more now than ever and it’s easier than ever to get your music heard. That was my problem coming up. So really work Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, all the music sites, build your following, build your audience. You may do better without a label financially and career-wise. Get out and play gigs. That’s the other thing I say. It’s easy to sit in your room and write a song for your friends, but get out and play gigs. You will learn much more about yourself and your music. So social platforms, play gigs, enjoy what you do.
MR: Nice. And your new Bookmarks seems to be a new chapter in how to look at the total story of John Ondrasik.
JO: I appreciate it, and hopefully, with more chapters to come. How about that?
MR: [laughs] Yeah! We have one more thing to cover–Live at the Vineyard.
JO: Oh yeah. Live At The Vineyard’s going to be awesome. It’s in Nappa, the first couple days of November, we’ll be up there singing songs, eating food, and drinking wine. It’s a blast.
MR: Sounds like fun, all the best with that and the new album, John. It’s really been great speaking with you and I do appreciate your time.
JO: Thank you Mike, take care, buddy.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne