Five for Fighting
American singer-songwriter (born 1965)
Vladimir John Ondrasik III (born January 7, 1965), known professionally as Five for Fighting, is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. He is best known for his piano-based soft rock, such as the top 40 hits "Superman (It's Not Easy)" (2001), "100 Years" (2003), and "The Riddle" (2006). He also had a string of moderate hits on the adult contemporary charts in the late 2000s and into the 2010s, including "World" (2006) and "Chances" (2009).
Ondrasik has recorded six studio albums, one EP, and several live albums as Five for Fighting. Ondrasik's song "Superman" was nominated for a Grammy in 2002. The singer has had songs featured in 350 films, TV shows, and advertisements. As of 2025, Five for Fighting's music has over one billion streams.
Early years
Ondrasik was born in Los Angeles, California, a child of a musical family. He is of Slovak descent. His mother was a piano teacher who taught at John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, Los Angeles, where he graduated.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Five for Fighting” is american singer-songwriter (born 1965). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Five, Fighting and American, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american singer-songwriter (born 1965)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q337844. VIAF identifies the subject as 14433909. The Library of Congress control number is no2002026600. 6 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965, 2001, 2003 and 2006.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Five for Fighting”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Five for Fighting primary sources, Five for Fighting archive and Five research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Five for Fighting”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Five for Fighting” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.