This is a time for choosing.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGYnkzeWxDw
This is the FCB Podcast Network. Our braid it is all mysold that day that we what was mad? Then we want to say, oh we got it? Does? No one can take that away. You don't, Dad, It's gonna be okay. Our braids all and sold that day that we what was mad? Then we won was sad. Oh we got it? Does? No one can take that away? Don't was Maad. It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna give you four rooms. We are not all right. We are not all right when we see young girls pull from their home and drag through the streets. When we see grandmothers man pull the wags and children shun in front of their families. We are not all right when right here in the city of New York, when those who celebrate, I say time, when the devastation this take Please, this is a time fortuny, This is a time too more. The moral man is loy forbid and lost foll Hello, everybody, Welcome back to another episode of Just Listen to Yourself with Kira Davis. And the song that you heard leading into today's show is actually written and performed by my guests today. I'm so pleased to have him. Please welcome singer songwriter John Andre Sick, otherwise known as Five for Fighting. John. Welcome to the show, Kira. It's great to see you. Nice to talk to you again, it really is. John and I go way back, well not that far back, but I happened to have the pleasure of attending a book party at his home with Betsy de Vos about a year ago, right around the time I was running for school board. Had a great time. And by the way, tell your wife I still want to get together because I love her. She loves you too. That was a fun night. And you know, props to you for running for office, you know, and you know, in this day and age, we all like to complain about what's going on, you know, to to you know, to actually get up there and do that takes a lot of work. A lot of you know will so thank you for doing that. Well, you're welcome. I lost, and I have to admit that I'm still smarting over it. It was. It was a heartbreaking experience. But you're right, and that's what we're going to talk about today. But you're right. There's a lot of people who say things, but I never wanted to be one of those people. I wanted to be somebody who jumped in with their whole heart and is willing to put their money and their lives where their where their mouths are. So John, a lot of people will will know your work and recognize your work with with your it's you Five for Fighting. People may think it's a band, but it's actually you. You may remember his smash hit Superman among many others. But John tell us, why are you five for Fighting and not John? That's a good question. Well, actually it was the late nineties, and it was the age of Lilith Fair and boy bands and grunge music. And you know, the male singer songwriter was not on the radio. It wasn't nineteen seventy. It wasn't Elton, John Billy, Joel James Taylor. So when my record on You of my records was done, the record company said, hey, John, you know we need you to come up with a band name. I'm like really, And I was like a little perturbed. But that day I had been to a hockey game, and hockey fans will know in La La Kings fans know that, especially back in the day, the hockey players would fight. And if you've got in a fight. You were a bad boy and you had to go to the penalty box for five minutes, and they called it five for fighting. And so I'd been to a hockey game that day and when the label said, you know, you need a band name, there'd been a couple of fights that day, I sarcastically said to them, Okay, how about five for fighting, expecting them to hate it, and they're like, we love it. You're crazy. Sounds like I should be opening for Metallica, you know, and sounds like we're a heavy metal band. But we went with five for fighting for better or worse, and here we are, you know, twenty five years later, you know, still still writing and singing. But it's been great because in a way, it's really kept the focus on the music, not the guy. And that's the way I like it. You know, a lot of folks know one hundred years Superman, and they don't they don't not necessarily know me, which which in a way is kind of cool. It allows me to kind of just you know, fly under the radar and frankly do things like this. Yeah, well let's get into that. But you did mention one thing that piqued my interest because I was reading a little bit of your biography online and you mentioned that by for Fighting sounded a little like heavy metal ish. Do you have a little glam rock experience in your background? Fun fact? Good question. So when I got out of college, I actually met a guy named Scott Sheets, who was a guitar player for Pat Benattar and I also met the bass player of White Snake, a guy named Rudy Sarzo who played with Ozzie White Snake, Quiet Riot. So I was twenty. These guys were like, you know, late thirties, early forties, So I had this kind of almost famous experience of hanging out with these guys. Scott and I actually created a band called John Scott with all the ex members of Pat Benatar, and we actually had a record deal and I did I kind of sang bomb Jovie rock that stuff and had the hair extension. And then this little band called Nirvana came out and then overnight the whole glam rock thing you know, went away, and which was a blessing to me because then I went back to the piano, I went back to my Billy Elton roots and started writing from that that kind of viewpoint. But yeah, I you know, look, Huge Led Zeppelin, Huge, the Who, ac DC, Steve Perry, Freddie Mercury. That's that's basically you know my formation, especially for singers. So yes, I love the rock and I love rocking out, but most people know me for my little piano ballads. You're little piano ballads? Yeah, well they're not little. And you heard a little bit of the song. The name of this song that we're gonna talk about today is Okay, and I'm going to play If you stick around, listeners, I will play the full song at the end of this podcast, and you'll want to hear it. Like most of John's music, it's it's haunting and it really is going to move you. But as we move into talking about the song and why I wrote it, would you just lay out for me as briefly as you can, what is the difference do you think between a singer songwriter and just a singer or just a songwriter? Because you probably are the artist, I would say you and Jason Moraz are two artists that made me look at the artistry of singer songwriters a lot differently. I hadn't really parsed that out before, and I realized now they are different things. How would you frame that they are? I think if you write great songs, you don't have to be a great singer. To me, it's all about the song. And I think being a singer also doesn't mean you can hit every note. It's really about do I know who that voice is within three seconds? So, and back in the day, it was a lot of singer songwriters, right, people wrote their own songs, they sang their songs. Today it's kind of a lot more someone writes a song, someone sings it, you know, I would you know, Barbara Streisand is an incredible singer, one of the best ever. You know, she doesn't write many of her songs. You No, Paul McCartney is a good singer. He's not Freddie Mercury, but he's good. But he's one of the most prolific songwriters we've ever had. So, you know, it's great to be able to sing your own songs. Many songwriters just don't have the voice and so they have to kind of find others to sing their songs. And also many great singers, you know, rely on on songwriters to have a career. So it's it's two totally different skill sets. But I've been blessed to be able to sing my own songs and write and collaborate with other folks. But if I could only be one a singer or a songwriter, definitely give me the song writers because Letter Cohen, one of our best lyricists of all, does not have a great voice, but god he has a great voice. Yeah, yeah, No, You're absolutely right, And I think what is so why your music has probably moved so many people and it's been included. And I mean, even if you don't know who John is, even if you've never heard his name, you've heard his music. It's on a TV show you watched, it's in a movie that you saw. But I really believe that that there are some things that are just fun and poppy, but there are some things that santa test of time because they speak to us. And as I was listening to your latest song, your latest ballad, Okay, I it was speaking to me. That is what people connect to, right, I think that is really ultimately the heart of music or art at all, is the idea that something that comes from this artist's heart is echoed in your own heart. And so Okay is a song that you wrote to sort of discuss this concerning rise of anti Semitism, what's going on in Israel right now. And even though the title of the song is okay, it's about how we're not okay. So set up this song for us? Why on earth would you sit down and write this song of all things? And what does it mean to you? Well, I think we were all shocked and horrified at the atrocities of October seventh. It reminded me of nine to eleven. It reminded me of the Afghanistan withdrawal. But I think what really continued to take us aback were the aftermath in the culture. Within twenty four hours, you had thousands of people celebrating the kidnapping of grandmothers, beheading of babies, raping of girls in New York City and across the country. And you might remember the Mayor of New York, Eric Adams speech, And in his speech she basically said the theme of the song. He said, you know, we're not all right, something's really wrong in the culture if we're out there celebrating these atrocities, whatever your political viewpoint. And we saw that play out over months. You know, we saw in the college campuses this rise of anti Semitism, the basically moral cowardice of university presidents. We saw this in the media with very quickly the media kind of taking up the kind of Hamas propaganda side. We saw this in the House of Representatives with Rashida Talib refusing to condemn beheading up babies and basically becoming a Hamas propagandist. And you know, more than you know, sixteen congress men and women refusing to condemn the rise of anti Semitism. So we saw it everywhere, and it really, I think, as Bari Weis said, it really was a symptom of the cultural rot that we've know has been going on for a long time on our campuses, in our media. This is nothing new. It's really a symptom. So to me, it's really not about Israel versus Hamas. It's about those who want to support civilization versus those who want to tear it down. And I also saw the complete disgusting silence of the arts, of the artists who love to get on their soapbox and preach to us Kira, you know it. They like to tell us, our moral betters, this is how the world is. You should care about human rights. They didn't care about women in Afghanistan, and now they don't seem to care about hostages in Israel, and it was disgusting to me. So I felt a calling to write it. I also felt a calling to make this video. I think the song was one thing, but the video I think was critical to really just here's what happened. It's not my opinion, but here's what happened. Here's what happened in our colleges. Here's the people tearing down posters. You know, Kira, I was honored to play the concert for New York and afterwards, nine to eleven, I walked down Seventh Avenue and you might remember back in the day, every you know, there was all the missing posters on every restaurant, every storefront, and we knew those people were never coming home. But could you've ever imagined people walking down the street and ripping off those posters. Wow, it was just so disgusting. So I felt the need to write this and say it. And and in the in the last you know, ten days, you know, a lot of folks are grateful that somebody's saying it. So I think all those reasons kind of inspired me. Outraged me obligated me to write this song. I don't know you very well, but you speak like a man of faith, are you? It depends what you call faith. You know, my sister is a Presbyterian minister. You will see a lot of Christian imagery in my songs, a song called If God Made You. I'm not necessarily a practicing Christian, but I think I share the same values and mindset and spirituality. And I think i'm you know, it's funny over the last ten days, you know, most people think I'm Jewish because I wrote this song. You don't have to be Jewish to condemn Hamas, right, So I share these kind of Judeo Christian values in my life and and of course we're always growing and reaching and searching. But I think I think we're missing that. And I think this kind of this kind of cult we're seeing of kind of wokeism and some of the dogma of a presser versus a press. And we see our children, you know, half of the youth support Hamas over Israel. I mean, we're losing a generation. So I think the kind of decline of religion in the country is playing out in a way that's very, very concerning because people need something to hold on to, and they're not holding on too religion. They're holding onto these cult ideas of oppressor versus a press, see, and that's their religion. You know, a lot of wokeism is religion because it's not about rationality, you know, like like Bill Maher said, you know, it's kind of like normal versus crazy. You know, if you can't condemn Hamas's evil, nothing's evil. So I think we're on this tipping point of society and I'm not sure which way it's going to go, and that it isn't that I mean, that's why I ran for school board, right, because isn't this part of the problem where yeah, nothing's evil. But we've been educating entire generations in the nuances of good and evil instead of being able to, you know, instill critical thinking skills in our kids, letting them just take the facts and the patterns, and we've just redefined everything until it's meaningless, which feels like part of the strategy. And so yeah, and the reason why I asked you this is because your words are so meaningful, and even the way that you're describing your calling, I felt moved to do this I've got these are me. These things mean something and it has meaning for you because there is something in your heart that tells you this is meaningful, and we seem to be educating that instinct out of people. I'll tell you this little story. My daughter's sixteen, and when after the attacks on October seventh, she she came home. Now, of course, like most sixteen year old, she's very online, and they were having discussions with her friends at school watching all the TikTok videos, But she knows my politics and how I am. So she said, Mom, I know this is going to sound like a stupid and really simple question, but whose side are we on? Who's the good guys in this? And I said, well, Israel. We are call as Christians were called to stand with Israel, of course as a spiritual commandment, but also justys logically and reasonably speaking, this is this is an attack on Israel. And she was John, She was so blown away. She was like, are you sure? Are you kidding? Like all my friends are, like everybody on TikTok? Mom, are you sure? Are you absolutely sure? That is the wave of influence that we're up against when it comes to this, You're exactly right. I was having a conversation with a friend of my son's and and he was asked, well, so Hamas Palestine or Israel? He said, oh, you know, Palestine Jmas. And he was asked why, he says, because it's mainstream. He knew nothing about what happened. And then and then you take five minutes and go, let me just show you a couple of pictures. Yeah, of these hostages and these babies and these families, and that you know, Hamas kind of filmed beheading babies in front of their parents and send it to their families. You know about that? No, I never hear that. Nobody's ever told me that. So you're right. You know, it is this kind of dogma. They're being fed and fed in school, you know, fed in college, fed by the media, fed by the only celebrities that speak out right kind of radically, you know, pro Palestine for you know, the Cusacks of the world and the young rock bands because they've been indoctrinated into the same thing. So you're right, it's a huge problem. We're losing a whole generation and if we don't stand up and face it, just like you did. You took action to change it. Right, and you didn't lose. That was just the first round. Okay, you didn't lose. You don't always win the first round, but you win the fight. So I think we all have to stand up. The first line of this song is this is a time for choosing, baring our heads hoping it'll go away, let somebody else handle it. If that's our attitude, we will lose this culture war. I you're it's for the souls of our kids, right, your daughter, my son, my daughter. It's really for the soul of our children. You're speaking my language. It's like your I don't know, you could fill in on this show actually preach, because yes, absolutely, I have gone from start this podcast a few years ago just to encourage people to think critically through their politics and really bring light to both sides of issues. I really want to bring people together, and I think when we understand why we believe, why we believe the things we do, it takes a lot of the air out of political conversations because you're more confident in what you believe, So even if the other person doesn't, you're not trying to convince them. You're just having an interesting conversation. But over the years and this is largely because of being a mom with kids in public school in California. I have come to the point where where I have realized and I think your song really is a reflection of this, which is maybe why it spoke to me so much. Is there's a time at this Biblical there's a time for war and there's a time for peace. And I know people like us want peace, right. We want to mind our own business, go to work, earn our money, support our families, enjoy our American dreams. However that's laid out for us. But sometimes you have to fight, and sometimes there's no more convincing to be done. It's just time to stand up, dry your light and say here and no further. I feel like that's where we are right now. Hallelujah. I am with you. And it's harder to do that. You know. We have jobs, we have you know, families, we have the super Bowl. You know, it's hard to do that. But that's one reason we're losing. Because the other side is motivated. They are passionate, they stand up, they're well funded, they're well messaged. You know, they have all the ingredients to I still think they're they're the silent minority. But if we are the silent majority and we continue being silent, pretty soon we will be the silent minority. And we're seeing that with our kids. So so I'm with you. We all have our roles to play, you know, you with with your media broadcasts and your podcast, running for office, me with the songs and trying to use the arts. But I think we all, you know, we're all on the same side, and we have to support each other and no voice is too small. And actually, one thing that's kind of good about this message is it's not political. People from any side. Anybody with a heart, anybody's the mind understands that Hamas is evil. Deborah Messing posted my song yesterday, Mark Levin posted it a couple of days ago. If those two can agree on something, you know, we know we're going in the right direction. So hopefully this message and the song will continue to do that and more in the media will feel comfortable covering not just the song but this message, because, as you know, the media has been pretty terrible on this whole post October seventh Thing, hot topics, the new of the day, in depth interviews, and a whole lot more. This the Outlaws Radio Show. Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today, that's out Laws the Outlaws Radio Show, an FCB podcast. Again, the song is called Okay and you can look that up on YouTube and also I'll post the link in our show notes. But I love what you said about this being a universal message. But isn't that part of the problem. And I think you especially can speak to this being in the arts industry, in the entertainment industry and having your hands right in this is that now we are at a place where to even be empathetic or to say hey, there are some universal ideas that even that is considered a weakness. You must take a position, and if you don't take the position, even if you're simply quiet, you're guilty by being quiet. Let's look at Chris Pratt, right, I think there was some whatever, some trance thing coming out and he just said nothing. He just chose to say nothing. He didn't say anything, and for that he got canceled because he wasn't being forward. And guys like you, I think there's a criticism that can come from other maybe left wing or I hate to say left wing progressive, because I think that's different than liberal and left wing, but from progressive the artists and circles who might look at you and look at this song and say, oh, that's just a message song, that's just a message ballad, and that makes it weak. To my point, hey, it's a really good song. But b how is what you're doing any different than what Green Day does, what Dixie Chick does. What you know, My parents were godless hippies and they listened to all the protest movie music of the seventies and eighties. Why why aren't you allowed to be in this space too, Because Hollywood and the arts are the most intolerant groups of tolerant people you'll ever meet. It's the last image of my video is Martin Luther King and his quote, to be silent in the face of evil is to be complicit in it. And this is a disgrace for the arts what we're seeing right now. You know, I was honored to play the concert for New York after nine to eleven. Every iconic artist played that night. We are sun City, we are live Aid. We're supposed to be on the front foot for moral issues. It is definitely quiet now Hollywood's bad, but there are a few folks, pat Patricia Heaton, who I think you know, has been amazing, Deborah Messying go down the list. Hollywood has been a little bit better, but maybe it's zero point h two percent. The music industry is dead quiet. Nobody said anything. It is disgusting, it is shameful. Who knows what the Grammys will do this weekend. I don't have a lot of hope for them doing anything that is not some watered down moral equivalency message. But it is historic shame and I do think it's cowardly, and I think, I think hopefully this song will give a little permission. Again, I'm not optimistic, but we can only do what we do, and whether it's to inspire or shame or call out, we just have to keep our heads down moving forward. You know, maybe the artists of my generation will come to their senses and not be afraid. But it really is moral cowardice. At the end of the day. It reminds me of nineteen thirty eight. You know, you read stories about the Holocaust, and you read stories about well, these artists, you know, they were scared, they didn't want to say anything. They were worried about their families, all this stuff, which all was true. But here we sit in our i you know, our ivory castles, and we're afraid to put in our computer that you know that assassinating and murdering girls at a music concert for peace is bad, you know. So so again, I think it's another symptom of why we're not okay. But I do see the tide turning a little bit, you know, I don't saw the other day in Beverly Hills they had twelve hundred flags Israeli flags. Yeah, And I think especially with the UN, the U N r w A thing coming out basically exposing what we all knew that the UN and r w A was basically you know, you know, Hamas infiltrated to a degree that everybody had to know. So I think some of these things are just so clear, and that farce at the Hague, even the farts at the Hague came out with basically them saying, all right, Israel, you're basically doing what you're doing is kind of what we would do. So I think there is some a tide turning. But but it is certainly a shameful time for artists and and I think people look back on it with shame, and they should be ashamed. They should be ashamed, especially when every award season, which we talk a lot about on this show, every award season, we get treated to celebrity after celebrity up on that stage, pontificating to us. That's why Ricky Gervais's Golden Globes, Sarah, I meant it'll go down in history, and it should. I still watch it, but yeah, because you're just pontificated too by these people. But then it's so easy to do. You've got a golden statue in your hand, You're at the fanciest dinner with the highest security, and you're going to be treated to the most luxurious amenities all night long and moving forward. And you're brave up there. But when push comes to shove and it's time for you to stand up for what's right, you're nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, continuing to lecture the rest of us from behind. You know, your expensive iPhone, don't give me that. And I think that is the distaste a lot of people have, especially for modern entertainers. But let me ask you this, and be honest, if you did not have the measure of success in your career that you have now. Would you have written this song when you were just sort of newly five for fighting as opposed to being this end of your career. I don't know. I don't know. I would like to say, of course, but I don't know. You know, if I'm trying to live my dream and the powerbrokers would end that dream overnight or cut off my family's paycheck or whatever it was, I don't know. I do think if it was twenty years ago, we lived them in a more sane or time. I think twenty years ago this song probably would have been written by the folks that should be right in this you know their names. Yeah so but but but certainly, being on kind of the end of my career, having some security, being blessed to have had some songs that people know make it a lot easier. You know, I'm not worried about the mortgage. I'm not worried about people calling me a name, or not being invited to a party, or not being hired for to write for a film. You know, I just think this is so much more important. But it's a really good question. You know, I've spoken to many folks in Hollywood over the years, who who are not kind of far left or progressive. And they're not all Republicans. Some were kind of blue dog Democrats, some are just you know, normal saying people. Yeah, and in Hollywood, you know, they are afraid to say anything. They have to go through their whole career is kind of hunched over and agreeing with Yeah, George Bush is the devil and all this stuff. And and so imagine kind of going through your career that way and in this, as you said, this group who tries to lecture us from their podiums every day. So yeah, I don't know. I would hope I did, but I could certainly see a situation where I wouldn't want to, you know, to rough the waters. And you know, and my dream that's and thank you for that, because it is. It's a complicated formula, right, and it's different, But I think you kind of nailed it earlier on in this conversation. You so you just got to get in where you fit in. Basically, you do what you can where you're at. And maybe I wrote a whole book about it's called drawing Lines, but it not everybody's going to be, you know, on the Oscar stage. But you might have something to do right where you are. I mean I ran for school board and there I had ten thousand votes to go get. You know, that's not a lot, that's not a huge it's a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of American politics. But it was that one little place. And I think what I hear you saying is, look, only you know what your situation is and all of the things you have to consider, but you got to do something somewhere at some point. Well, I'm stealing your line, get in where you fit in. I'm going to be plagiarizing that, please, just like our presidents at Harvard. I'm gonna be plagiarizing that for the next two months. But yeah, you're right. We all have a role to play, you know, whether you have a million followers or ten or or you know, in your pta with your friends, you know, just just standing up and and and questioning somebody when when you know, when you're afraid, you know us, you know, you don't need to go save the world every day. But I think if everybody just kind of stood up for sanity and common sense and and and kind of push back on some of the dogma out there, we'd be in a much better place. But again, it it takes will, and it is really the battle for the soul of the country. And and you know, I was listening to New Gingrich once and talking about, you know, the culture war, and he said something that was that stuck with me. Somebody asked him, so, who's who's gonna win the culture war? Or how does the cultural war end? And he said, somebody wins, somebody wins. And right now we're losing on the youth youth side, we're losing. And that's the first thing we need to recognize. We're losing. We're losing our kids. So let's first recognize that. And then it's a campaign. You ran a campaign campaign. It's not a post on Twitter, it's not a podcast. It's a campaign that's gonna take probably decades. But we need a strategy. We need leaders, we need soldiers, we need funding, we need the arts, we need all of it to come together for this campaign. And we better start now. You you talked a little bit about you know, starting out the industry, and it might be you might have to make different considerations, you know, when you're just starting out as you do then you do, maybe on the later end of things. But what advice might you have for young sane singer songwriters or artists who look forward to being in the music industry even as it stands now, who love the idea of, you know, getting that big record contract and opening up with little nause x or whatever. What is your advice? And imagine you're talking to some kid that has at least a grain of common sense. What would your advice be to those young people? Well, first of all, there's a lot of opportunities now that I didn't have. You don't need a big record deal. You have the internet. You can build your own following, you can build your email list, you can play shows and grow your career as a writer. You know, I tell people, right if your songwriter write thousands of songs, collaborate with people, work with different producers. So much of success in any aspiration is work ethic talent is like that. The other thing I would say is look beyond just the music side or your art to the marketing side, because you may have success not because you created a nice piece of art, but because you had a relationship with somebody business that you knock down that door. One hundred times and ninety nine times it was slammed in your face, but that one hundred time it opened. Perseverance. All these things go into any aspect of success. But also I tell you know, especially young kids these days, because everybody wants it now. Oh my god, I'm twenty one. I don't have ten million followers. My life is over. It's like, enjoy the ride, you know, enjoy creating and enjoy experience experiences with your fellow collaborators, your you know, whether there's four people, you know, I spent years playing for five or six people in a coffee shop. You know, like, enjoy this part of it too. Enjoy the blessing that you have the freedom to say whatever you want and do whatever you want, because in many countries you don't. So enjoy it. Work hard, be smart, and at the end of the day, if you do all that. You know, it's the arts. It's not sports. You know, you never know what's gonna happen. If you're Michael Jordan, you're playing. But remember too, it so much has to do beyond you. If someone doesn't like your song, that doesn't mean it's a great song. So just kind of if with that attitude. I think you know of optimism and perseverance. I think whatever happens, you'll enjoy music for the rest of your life. You'll enjoy your art for the rest of your life. Because look, I met my wife through my songwriting. I had no success, I had nothing, And if that was all that came out of my twenty year passion, I won the lottery, you know, Kira, You know Carla. So the arts take you in ways you could never imagine. And maybe it's not a hit record, or maybe it's not famine fortune, but maybe it's things that are even more important. That is so good. Absolutely, and you you kind of you have to know what you have to offer the world. So you got to find that out and then when you know what that is, offer it all. Right. Well, oh, I have one more question before we wrap up here. You did you do a few dates with Bar Naked Ladies last year? Oh? Yes, how was that? It was the most fun I have ever had on a tour. The Bar Naked Ladies are the greatest guys. It was like adult rock star summer. I love it. That's exactly what I hoped you would say. Every night. It was fun. It was goofy. Their audiences were great. They're wonderful people. We would go running, we would you know, tell stories. It was so much fun. And of course you know, they played for five to ten some people a night, and they were so gracious to us. It was amazing. And there you know, Ed's just a fantastic songwriter, incredible entertainer. They're so funny but also so poignant. Everything's in their show, so it was a blast. I was actually texting with Ed this morning about kind of this Israel stuff and they make you love the music business. We need more bear Naked Ladies, bar naked ladies bands and maybe just bare naked ladies either or we'll do well. That's awesome. I'm a huge bear Naked Ladies fan, so when I saw that you had done with then, I thought, oh, had I miss this? So if it comes around again, I'm definitely gonna be at that shell. It was John an amazing pleasure to talk to you today. The title of the song is Okay and you can find it on the five for Fighting YouTube channel. I'll also include the link. Here is the show notes and also proceeds earned from the video. He's got a really cool video that's attached. This proceeds will go to nonprofits that support the battle against anti Semitism? Am I right about that exactly, Kira. Yeah, there's some great organizations doing great work out there. All proceeds will go to those organizations and you can find anything at Fiveforfighting dot com. And hopefully you can come to one of our California tour dates in April, and certainly you're always on the guest list. You and your family, bring your daughter. I'd love to meet her. Ah, All right, well done. Don't say it if you don't mean it, John, because I will be there. I don't want you to be like, oh, I was just trying to be nice and then I'm you're part of the family. That awesome. Ah, No, I thank you so much for what you're doing. Thank you for sharing your incredible talent with the world, and also just saying things that need to be set need to be said. You clearly get it, get in where you fit in. So thanks a lot, John, and everybody. To be sure to go and click on this video, donate to the causes that it supports. Everything's right there on the video page, and as always, don't forget to subscribe. To this podcast. It's a little thing you can do that costs you nothing but helps me in dramatic ways. Just hit that subscribe button. If you want to delete the podcast later, do so, but never delete this one because you'll want to keep this one forever and until we talk again. Everyone, Just remember, every once in a while, just stop and listen to yourself more. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where Real Talk lives. Visitors online at fcbpodcasts dot com.