The Q&A session, moderated by Doug Frank, President, Music Operations for Warner Bros. Pictures, included guest panelists Richard Barton Lewis, producer; Mark Mancina, composer; Julia Michels, music supervisor; John Ondrasik musician/songwriter and Grammy Award nominee (Five For Fighting); and Jeff Pollack, music supervisor.

August Rush is a drama with fairy tale elements that tells the story of a charismatic young Irish guitarist and a sheltered young cellist who have a chance encounter one magical night above New York's Washington Square, but are soon torn apart, leaving in their wake an infant, August Rush, orphaned by circumstance. Now performing on the streets of New York and cared for by a mysterious stranger, August uses his remarkable musical talent to seek the parents from whom he was separated at birth.

Five years and several hit albums later, he continues to increase his reputation as an international singing star and songsmith. With his latest studio release, Awake, Groban is breaking new ground for himself. “The goal was to put music on the new album that was stylistically different from a lot of things that I’ve done,” he commented in a recent interview.

Inspired by a trip to South Africa, he wrote “Lullaby” with South African native Dave Matthews, featuring the harmonies of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Herbie Hancock is on hand to help create the subtle, understated funk of “Machine,” a collaboration with Eric Mouquet and Dave Bassett.

There is also plenty on the album to satisfy fans of Groban’s classic ballad style, such as the beautiful “February Song,” for which he shares writer credits with John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting and Marius De Vries. Groban relates how the song was born one sleepless night: “I walked over to the piano and it just came to me in the most magical way.”

Having achieved success so early, Josh Groban seems committed to discovering all he is capable of. “I feel that we’re in an exciting time when people are ready to accept all sorts of music,” he avers. “I owe it to the crazy success that has happened [to me] not to rest on it — and go where it thrills me.”

Built around singer/songwriter John Ondrasik, the group first made waves with its second album, 2000’s America Town (Columbia), featuring the Grammy-nominated song “Superman (It’s Not Easy).” Although already a hit before 9/11, afterwards the tune became a kind of spiritual national anthem, leading to Ondrasik’s being invited to join Paul McCartney, Elton John and The Who to perform at the post-9/11 fund-raiser “The Concert for New York.”

Ondrasik recalls “sitting at a piano in Madison Square Garden playing a song that seems to provide solace to the emergency workers and their families. Halfway through, seeing these burly firefighters with tears rolling down their faces: It was the most important thing I’ll ever do musically.”

Following up such a significant moment would be a difficult task, and Ondrasik took a couple of years to craft the Battle for Everything album, which yielded another inspirational hit with “100 Years.” “It means a lot as a writer when your songs find their way into everyday lives,” he says. “To hear MP3s of ‘100 Years’ sung at graduations, or to speak to folks about how certain songs helped out, inspires me to keep on swinging.”

Ondrasik aims squarely for the fences with his latest album, Two Lights, which grew out of conversations the songwriter had with a wide range of Americans, from cops (the Ben Folds-ish humor of “Policeman’s Xmas Party”), to surfers and soldiers.

The last subject looms large on the album’s title track. “Two Lights” came about following a dinner Ondrasik had with a young Iraq-bound soldier and the man’s father, a Vietnam War vet. “I wanted to write a song that talked about the reality of how these parents feel,” Ondrasik explains. “The simple thing of ‘Two Lights’ is two lives: the father’s and the son’s. That’s what inspired this song, the look of pride and fear in a father’s eye.”

Ondrasik also turns his keen observational skills on himself, via first single “The Riddle.” Written for his children, the song’s video features John’s blue Mustang, itself passed down to Ondrasik from his own father, and the inspiration for the song “’65 Mustang.” “At its heart it’s a love song from a father to his son,” he says.

Lest anyone think Ondrasik is always brooding, keep in mind his monthly NHL column for SI.com. Why hockey? Look to the band’s seemingly odd name, which refers to the number of penalty-box minutes given to brawling hockey players. “Like everyone in my demo,” he laughs, “I think I know a hell of a lot more about sports than I actually do.”

John’s Grammy-nominated song “Superman (It’s Not Easy),” from the America Town CD, was already a hit when 9/11 happened. Afterwards, the song became a spiritual national anthem, and John joined superstar headliners Mick Jagger, Elton John, Paul McCartney and others for the post-9/11 fund-raiser “The Concert for New York.” “Here’s a kid just getting over shock of hearing himself on radio for first time,” recalls John, “sitting at a piano in Madison Square Garden playing a song that seems to provide solace to the emergency workers and their families. Halfway through, seeing these burly firefighters with tears rolling down their faces: it was the most important thing I’ll ever do musically.”

In 2004 he recorded The Battle For Everything, which yielded the hit “100 Years,” once again proving Ondrasik’s ability to craft inspirational songs with a social message. “It means a lot as a writer when your songs find their way into everyday lives,” he says. “To hear mp3s of ‘100 Years’ sung at graduations, or to speak to folks about how certain songs helped out, inspires me to keep on swinging.”

Two Lights should yield no less. Produced by John and band mates Curt Schneider (bass, guitars) and Andrew Williams (guitars), the album was inspired in part by conversations John had with ordinary Americans. Cops and cruisers, soldiers and surfers all have a place in John’s America. Overall the CD is classic Americana, grittier and riskier than his previous work. That’s especially so on songs like “California Justice” and the darkly comic “Policeman’s Xmas Party,” both based on real events.

Yet he also touches unflinchingly on the personal. The CD’s debut single “The Riddle” is a song he wrote for his children, while the companion video features his beloved blue Mustang (a car passed down to John from his father and the inspiration for the song “‘65 Mustang"). Says John of the single, “A lot of my songs touch on mortality, but at its heart it’s a love song from a father to his son.”

The father-son motif is most poignantly expressed in “Two Lights,” a song that came to John after having dinner with a young soldier bound for Iraq, and the soldier’s father, a Vietnam veteran. “I talked with the kid’s father,” John remembers. “In that moment, I saw a mixture of pride and fear in the old man’s eyes. I wanted to write a song that talked about the reality of how these parents feel. The simple thing of ‘Two Lights’ is two lives: the father’s and the son’s. That’s what inspired this song, the look of pride and fear in a father’s eye.”

Whatever subject he tackles, John’s music is always infused with an empathetic spirit and sung in one of the most richly distinctive voices in contemporary pop. Still, the new CD may surprise those unaccustomed to the sharper edge of John’s musical persona. “Producing is rewarding but also an extra slice of pain and suffering,” he says. “Songs like ‘The Riddle’ and ‘California Justice’ are 90 percent craft, whereas others like ‘Road to Heaven’ and ‘I Just Love You’ are essentially live takes. In either case, the band has to be in the room, the clock has to be turned off, and the red light (or hard drive)...blinking.”

John Ondrasik was born in L.A.’s sprawling San Fernando Valley, and grew up in a musical family. At two, he began studying piano and later added guitar. He majored in math at UCLA, but his heart was always in music. His hard work paid off, and today he’s right where he wants to be: a working touring musician with a great family to come home to. “Being in a band,” he says, “you spend a lot of months on a bus rolling through America. Unless you do that you don’t have a sense of the expanse and the differences that make it so great. My music just comes from my experience putting the miles on tires.”

Over the last year, John has also been busy working on music for films. He wrote, produced and performed “The Best,” the main title song for the upcoming animated baseball-comedy feature Everyone’s Hero (he also teamed up with country greats Brooks & Dunn to co-write “Keep On Swinging” for the same film). For the movie August Rush, John produced and wrote “Break,” which is performed on screen by actor Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Although primarily known for performing his own compositions, John also recorded a compelling new version of the classic Jimmy Webb composition, “All I Know” (a chart-topping pop hit song for Art Garfunkel in 1973), for the hit Walt Disney Pictures Film, Chicken Little.

But right now, Two Lights remains first and foremost in his musical life; that, and reaching out to an ever-expanding audience of admirers, whether in a darkened concert hall or on an iPod during morning rush hour. “I just try to get better as a songwriter,” he says. “That’s all I can do: try to write things that matter. At the end of the day all you can do is say what you believe.”

Website: www.fiveforfighting.com

The Battle For Everything has become more than the follow up to the smash America Town , it’s proof that Ondrasik is a singer/songwriter with real staying power. The evidence is all over 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. A crocodile sings on “Disneyland,” loss and hope hover in the haunted melody of “If God Made You,” Heaven itself crashes and burns on “Infidel,” and on tunes like “The Devil in the Wishing Well” and “Nobody” turbulent lyrics and ambitious compositional structures unleashed panic back at the record label—for a minute, at least.

“When I was a kid I could put on Dark Side of the Moon , turn up the sound in my headphones, lie down in the dark, and go away,” Ondrasik remembers. “I wanted that experience again, and so I was ambitious to the point of absurdity. If I wanted drama, we got a thirty-piece orchestra. If we wanted a rock edge, we went after it with reckless abandonment. It was like doing my own private Quadrophenia .”

Months after the The Battle For Everything’s release both “100 Years” and “The Devil in the Wishing Well” have become radio hits. The record has been embraced by fans as another great work in the cannon of one of today’s finest singer/songwriters. and Ondrasik’s songs continue to inspire and spark imagination with their bristling mix of contemporary emotions and classic techniques.

Pictured accepting the Most Performed Foreign Work award for Ondrasik are John Anderson, Managing Director of EMI Music Publishing Australia and BMI's J.W. Johnson.

]]> 2003-06-25T18:00:01-05:00 http://www.bmi.com/musicworld/entry/233673 Artists, Fernando, Five For Fighting, Ondrasik, John, Musical Styles, Pop, Rock, Musicworld, Hitmaker In the mournful wake of September 11, 2001, the mysterious California band known as Five For Fighting has deservedly rocketed from obscurity to pop renown. Fortunately for music lovers worldwide, the band's timing couldn't have been better.

The saga begins in summer, 2001. Five For Fighting was already making inroads at radio and VH1 with its acclaimed concept album American Town and its emotional single and music video, "Superman (It's Not Easy)." Miles removed from the chest-pounding bravado of teen-pop and rage-rock, "Superman" was introspective and modest in the most flattering sense of the term.

Then came the September 11 terrorist attacks on America that forever transformed world politics. While radio programmers altered their playlists to reflect the suddenly introspective mood of the nation, "Superman" was that rare single that required no apologies or explanations. In fact, the song's healing lyrics seemed entirely appropriate. Featuring the heartrending sentiment "even heroes have the right to bleed," the single articulated the pain and emotional vulnerability of a wounded nation.

For all intents and purposes, Five For Fighting is an alias for singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist John Ondrasik. Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, Ondrasik began his music studies at age two under the direction of his piano teacher mother. His introduction to sports came later, hence the name Five For Fighting. The moniker is derived from a hockey term: five minutes in the penalty box for fighting.

The group's pugnacious name is ironic, considering their blend of pop, rock, folk and even classical. It's that combination of influences that gives "Superman" its credibility. As Ondrasik explained recently: " 'Superman' is about humanity, the desire to belong, and the desperate need - and sometime inability - to feel. We all try to be Superman, but sometimes that's very hard, very disappointing, and we tend to lose the humanity in ourselves."