CAPLIVE: FIVE FOR FIGHTING

pop rock · rock

Five for Fighting is the stage name of Vladimir John Ondrasik III, a Los Angeles singer-songwriter and pianist born on January 7, 1965. Of Slovak descent, he grew up with a mother who taught piano in the Los Angeles public schools and graduated from UCLA with a degree in applied science and mathematics. He adopted the Five for Fighting name in 1995 at the suggestion of EMI executives who found his surname hard to pronounce; the phrase is the ice hockey penalty for fighting, a nod to his support for the Los Angeles Kings. After the little-noticed debut Message for Albert on EMI in 1997, he signed to Aware/Columbia for America Town in 2000, whose single Superman (It's Not Easy) reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned a Grammy nomination. The Battle for Everything followed in 2004, reaching No. 20 and yielding 100 Years, a platinum single that topped the Adult Contemporary chart. Two Lights peaked at No. 8 in 2006 and produced The Riddle and World, and he later released Slice in 2009, which included Chances from The Blind Side, and Bookmarks in 2013. His catalog has been licensed to more than 350 films, television programs and advertisements. Ondrasik has also written topical material tied to current events, including Blood on My Hands in 2021, Can One Man Save the World? in 2022, which he performed with a Ukrainian orchestra in Kyiv, and OK in 2024. He has raised money for military and children's charities and organized five CD for the Troops compilations distributed to service members. Alongside solo dates he tours a string quartet arrangement of his catalog led by Tony Award winner Katie Kresek, pairing chamber settings of the songs with extended between-song storytelling.

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