Mantler

 
Chris A. Cummings (aka Mantler) was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1969. Although he studied classical piano and wrote pop songs as a young child, it was not until his mid-twenties that he realized his vocation as a songwriter.

As a DJ in early-nineties Toronto, Cummings frequented record stores and fairs, where a chance encounter with another record collector changed his life. A Fender Rhodes electric piano existed in a rehearsal space in Mississauga, he learned, but the band that rehearsed there didn't have a piano player. Cummings joined the band for weekly rehearsals for one year, following which he bought a Wurlitzer electric piano and began composing songs on his own. He chose the name Mantler, feeling that it reflected both the humour and the seriousness of his work.