This is later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Hear weekday afternoons on the Drive. Coinciding with the Music in Our School's Month, the National Online Music Challenge is on and Grammy nominated John Andresik of Fine for Fighting Partners with the Toolman Family for the Music Matters Challenge, which is launching on Well this week. In fact, so it's great to have John on with us with Fine for Fighting. John. What brought you to this organization in
the first place? Hey, Lee, nice to be with you, Thanks for having me. Yeah. I actually participated with the Telman Foundation a year and a half ago to write a song called let Music Fill My World with eight high school students from Farragut Academy in Chicago and Faragut Academy did not have a music teacher. They'd lost their music teacher. So writing this song with these kids and going into the studio and recording it, they wrote the whole
lyric. I came up with the concept, but it was their words. Through that process, we raised money and we provided a school music teacher for Farragut that'll be starting next year for three years at a salary of a quarter million dollars, so we had a lot of applicants and we wanted to take that nationally, and we have four million kids in this country don't have a
music teacher. And what the Music Matter Challenge is is everybody can enter and make a little video of talking about a music teacher or someone who made a difference in their life and tell that story and also sing a little bit of let music film my world, or dance to it or play an instrument to it. And at the end of April, we'll pick ten finalists and then the public will vote and the winner will participate with the Taulmann Foundation and me
again to provide a school music teacher for school in need. Win ten thousand dollars, and there's a school prize so schools can compete against each other and they'll win a twenty five thousand dollars grant. But what really it is is raising awareness for music in the schools because as you know, Lee, it's it's critical. Music is critical, especially for young people, and that's what
we're after. Well, I don't know about you, John o'drassic. I had a very fulfilling high school and middle school of experience because of music. Music for me was Okay, I'm going to forget about that science test I didn't do well, and I'm going to forget about whether or not I'm going to understand the math lesson. I'm about to go into and we're going to sing some songs and make some music for forty five fifty minutes. So not only was it a break from the rest of the day, it gave your
brain something else to do. And at the same time you were learning. You didn't realize you were learning counting, you were you know, we were learning rhythm, you were learning how to put things together. That was what it was for me. I don't know if you had the same experience in high school I did, of course, you know, and if you look
at the metrics, it may not seem like it. But look, students that have music teachers, they perform much better academically in the sciences, in the reading and writing, graduation rates are higher, social anxiety decreases, It
brings us together, It lets us find our voice. You know, we could talk for an hour about all the metrics, and some you know, some administrators look at music as extracurricular and as you just mentioned, it's not it's critical and we need to kind of put that in the same class as all the really you know, the standard math reading writing. Because look, if you have a child and you see how music comes into their life, you can tell right away that their view expands, their their learning expands,
their discipline expands. So just like you, you know, music was critical. I was a math major, you know, in college. But yeah, but yeah, but music, music, I think kind of allowed me to excel. So I think it's for all of us, and it's important that we recognize that. Well, your circle of fifths I think can be easily translated into accidentimals. Look at you, John and Drasaka five for fighting and he is here talking about the music in our schools. Well, it's
music in our Schools month. But the Music Matters challenge which is on uh and uh the uh you're you're partnering with this? Was was? I mean? Was this by accident or did they reach out to you? But Tolman found family is amazing. They've actually I've known Glenn Sulman the dad, for for decades. They supported me when I went to Ukraine and performed a song with Ukrainian Orchestra. They do amazing work in Chicago. They just want to make the world a better place, and they do a lot of work in
Chicago and these inner city schools. So you know, we're blessed to have their resources, but more importantly their passion, you know, and their expertise, and their heart and soul, and you and I I think are about of the same generation. I was sad to say I didn't take that many years after I left high school to learn that my high school had shut down
most of their musical program. I think they still have just very little, but most of the musical program was phased out for what we've already talked about, it was considered extracurricular. Well, look, the reason I'm here is when LA Unified cut music funding for my elementary school, my mom volunteered and started putting on musicals. And you know, Lee, I was Tony at West Side Story. Whether I had the talent or it was nepotism, we'll
leave that for someone else to decide. But again, fifty years later, you know, those kids that were in that class, you know, still reach out to my mom and talk about how important that was. And I think that's exactly why we're here. So I'm trying to pay it forward for Mom, and you're doing it with Five for Fighting, your group and the challenge which is on the Tulman Family and Music Matters Challenge. You and Five for Fighting also are about to or are you already on tour again? Yeah,
I'm actually starting. I'm actually in New York now and we'll be hitting Fargo, North Dakota. I'll be checking off my fiftieth state, so I'll be able to say I've been every state in this lovely, wonderful nation of ours. And we'll be going through April seventh, and then I'm taking a little detour to Israel to do some work there, come back, and we'll wrap up our tour on the West Coast. All the dates are up on five Forfighting dot com. I'm playing with an amazing string quartet, so those
musicians just blow my mind. My violin player, Katie won a Tony Award, so they always inspire me every night. And there's nothing better than sitting with people and telling some stories and playing some music. Well, this is going to be kind of like the old MTV unplug days, isn't it.
The sound totally yeah and totally behind the music and those are the shows I love to see my favorite artists, you know, James Taylor with a guitar, Billy Joel sitting at a piano and giving them the time to you know, where did that song come from? Here? I work when I wrote this song, you know it is. So that's a lot of fun for performer as well. No, I used to love the old Harry Chapin shows.
All of his shows were like that, Oh yeah, amazing. You know there's something about an artist with their instrument, you know, in a very intimate setting, a smaller venue, that's very special and we as performers. I think for me, it's the favorite way to express and play my songs. John Andressica five for fighting and partnering with the Toolman family for the Music Matters Challenge. Hey, where can people go to learn more about the challenge? Yeah, thank you for asking. All you have to do is
go to the website let music filmyworld dot com. All the informations there for everybody. You don't need to be a great singer, and just know that folks will be will be participating to raise money for a music teacher, whether you win or not. So it's a lot of fun. The main thing is have fun, participate and I can't start. I can't wait to see everybody's videos as we launched this amazing project. John Andrassica, Fine for fighting, Thank you for bringing the charity to us, and thanks for all the
great music Go Thunder. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation