The nice thing about sports, muses John Ondrasik, is if you are good, you will play.
      Unfortunately, adds this ardent hockey and basketball fan who also is the one-man band Five for Fighting, there is little relation between artistic merit and commercial success when it comes to music. "Imagine," he offers, "Bob Dylan or Kurt Cobain on American Idol."
      When he is not doing so in penning his latest song, Ondrasik writes articulately about hockey in a column appropriated entitled "Five for Fighting" on the Inside Hockey website, www.insidehockey.com. (Five for Fighting is a reference to a penalty in hockey in which a player is accessed five minutes in the penalty box for a fight deemed a significant one.)
      To Ondrasik, hockey is the best of all spectator sports. "It combines beauty with brute force. Think [musician] Jeff Buckley," he explains.
      Both hockey and music currently are struggling, largely due to economics, to define their respective futures. A strike in the NHL is a possibility this fall.
      While that won’t happen in music, Ondrasik believes the music industry is in the process "of breaking and being put back together. Due to downloading, the artist development that was declining is virtually nonexistent," he says. "In defense of the labels, the executives can barely look beyond the next quarter, as there is little job security and no guarantee they will be around to see anything through."
      The trend to copy whatever is current in pop is a short-term fix, he adds. "I do think songwriters are trying to regain a footing, but there is a long way to go. I’ve been lucky to be in a situation with a team that has long-term vision." As a songwriter in the current landscape, Ondrasik considers himself fortunate just to be doing what he is doing. He brings, he says, perseverance and the will to lay it all on the table. "That, to me, is all any artist can do. At the end of the day all you have is your gut, your heart and your head."
      He put it all into his latest album, %The Battle For Everything%, the follow-up to the smash America Town debut containing "Superman." "I am constantly taken aback at the reaction of some fans to the music. And it is, frankly, about the music, not me," he says. He tends to separate himself from the rest of it. "I am pleased, though, to be reminded why music can matter. That’s what my influences inspired in me as a kid."
      He senses that his music is reaching people "because I’m a typical 30-something American who happens to write about what many of us feel, think about or fear in our daily lives."
      Most of his themes contain points of view that people talk about every day, he says. "I just reframe them a bit." He says he is drawn to subjects and themes that interest, frustrate, frighten or amuse him. "I am a political and culture junkie and spend most of my off time bouncing between sports talk and arguing worldview. Of course, your emotional state always affects some aspect of your songs, and those songs you can’t read until long after they’re recorded."
      He tries to emulate those who have depth in their lyrics, people like Don Henley, Sting, Tom Waits and Steely Dan, among many others. It is a priority to him to present a point of view, whether people find it or agree with it.
      Ondrasik believes it is important that songwriters observe and describe the world. "We get a unique view of history in listening back to music over the years. When I grew up, the rock and pop stars were the ones that had a point of view. It is harder now than ever, sadly, to have meaning in popular music."
      He admits he can see people’s tendency to be surprised when they find it—such as they have with Ondrasik and Five for Fighting.
      His latest song to have particular resonance with listeners is the contemplative ballad "100 Years," off The Battle For Everything. It is, he explains, about a man looking back on his life, and yet another reminder that "all we have is right now"—regardless of how that "right now" plays out.
      He wrote "Superman (It’s Not Easy)," a career-defining piano ballad, before the terrorist attacks of September 11, but it was adopted by firefighters and other emergency workers at the World Trade Center site as a touchstone for solace, strength and survival. Ondrasik was asked to perform it at the Concert for New York at Madison Square Garden, a show in which he also joined Paul McCartney in "Let It Be." His music in general has been praised as "offering an air of optimism amid the negativity."
      Many artists and people seem to find it difficult to remain optimistic in the challenging times in which we live, yet Ondrasik is able to rise above that and convey a sense of hope.
      Does that come naturally for him? Is that in the Ondrasik family genes? "Ha! My wife would debate you on that one. I can be the grumpy dwarf at times," he replies, laughing. "I am optimistic in that with all the issues surrounding us today, I believe strongly in the American heart and American ideal."
      Not lost on him is the way music touches people, helps them see their way through darkness, reminds them they are not alone in whatever they are going through. This realization can serve as motivation and validation for any artist, he suggests.
      "I have received notes from our troops and their families. I have played for the emergency workers in New York. I was just honored to play for the soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital," he says. "In a culture that tends to overemphasize celebrity, whenever a true hero finds value in my music it provides validation, motivation and perspective."
      He is sometimes amazed at how music, a song, takes on a life of its own; how it possesses almost magical powers to heal and speak to people. There are many examples of that in e-mails from his fans on his website, and dramatically so in the way "Superman" spoke to people post-September 11 and in the manner in which "100 Years" is doing it in a different way. A teen recently e-mailed him that every time she hears "100 Years" it reminds her of her grandmother’s battle to live.
      "It frankly does not seem real. It seems as time goes on those songs are theirs more than mine, which is probably appropriate," Ondrasik says. "As someone who believes in the unique traits of music, I’m pleased when songs seem to matter, whether I write them or not."
      In a March 4, 2004, posting on his website, a 13-year-old who apparently was considering suicide offered thanks to Ondrasik for "taking my breath away with a few words and a soft melody. "The inspiration your music has made on my life is simply unbelievable," the teen added. "I thank you for your wise words, your inspiration to live my life. Thank you for changing my mind, for helping me to make the right decision, to never give up. I’m going to breathe with a full breath and live with a full heart. Every day’s a new day. And we’ve only got a hundred years to live."
      Ondrasik re-emphasizes that he is always pleased when a song makes a difference. Sometimes, though, it is a bit too heavy for him to contemplate. "Music can be a trigger only to something that people already have within themselves," he reasons. "This can be good and bad. If a song inspires someone to take a course [of action], they most likely have that tendency. Having said that, writers are responsible for what they write and the repercussions that go with it. Since ‘Superman’ was popular with young kids I had to be careful with some lyrical choices on the new album."
      Asked if he considers himself prolific as a songwriter, he responds, "If prolific is writing a lot of songs, I’m that. If it’s writing a lot of good songs, I’m something else."
      Songs rarely come easily to him. Usually it is a painful process, he says. "Superman" came in 45 minutes; "100 Years" in four months.
      He sits at the piano or grabs his guitar and starts the tape rolling. "The concept is the inspiration, the melody is luck, the lyric is just hard work," he explains. He tends to record everything and then go back and listen for ideas. "Sometimes I have a concept in my head that finds its way into a melody, as ‘100 Years’ did." Ondrasik usually writes 100 to 150 songs for a record "and 100 more I don’t finish. I usually have five to 10 ideas going at a time."
      Like some other artists, he enjoys the process of creating as much as, if not more than, the finished product. "There is nothing better than playing a song all the way through, if it’s good, the first time. After that it’s all downhill. That initial excitement and sense of accomplishment keeps you coming back to the piano."
      In approaching The Battle For Everything, he wanted to stretch himself as a singer and writer and test some artistic waters. Did he achieve those goals? "I don’t know," he says. "To some extent, I think I did. If you ever feel you hit all your marks, you surely didn’t."
      He says he had the luxury of making the record "old style—going far away from home, locking yourself in a room for a year and hitting ‘record.’"
      So much of record making is failing, he says, and for that you need time and ego. "We were lucky to have [producer] Bill Bottrell set the tone and push us on a purely musical level. I was hoping to create a piece of work with a vibe, not just a collection of songs," he explains.
      He says that Bottrell, whose credits include Sheryl Crow and Shelby Lynne, among others, instilled a complete loyalty to the song and the process. "Bill had no interest in the commercial side of things. He provided the environment and gave me the confidence to leave it all out there: good, bad and ugly. A dying breed is Bill Bottrell."
      Ondrasik hopes that people view the album as an honest piece of work in a moment in time. "Where America Town, due to the process, was more a collection of songs, I hope this record is cohesive in a way where the listener can put it on for 45 minutes and check out. This was the kind of album I grew up on and still listen to. Whether I succeeded or not is up for debate."
      There is no doubt to Ondrasik about the joy of taking that music to the concert stage. "It’s always mind-blowing to get in front of a crowd and see first-hand that what you do can touch people. That fact can get lost in the daily grind of the music business," he explains.
      He says that some people may be somewhat surprised by the rock element of the shows (he is supported by musicians). "My first show I ever saw was the Billy Joel ‘Glass Houses’ tour. One minute it’s the amps on 11, the next it’s the guy alone at the piano. Still, it’s about the songs at the end of the day."
      The "in the moment" nature of live performance (see "100 Years" for an explanation, he recommends) and the relationship with the audience are what is so fulfilling to him about being onstage. "It can get very emotional for me," he says.
      Spoken like a true Lakers and Kings fan.