Here's an interview by Sebastian Hinz, from Die Goon ....Magazine.. in ..Germany..... It was done in October 2002, just when Sadisfaction was about to be released. I was very excited because this was my first international release.

Where do you borrow your artist name ‘Mantler’ from? What is the story about?

The name just came out of a customer database...it sounded funny so I went with it...this was in 1995. I wanted it to be humourous but still kind of serious - the image of an antler on a man, or antlers made out of men. One friend told me it reminded him of a macho cop show from the 80s .There’s also a 60s-70s jazz guy called Michael Mantler who I was aware of from years of record collecting. So it came from all those places.
             

I read that after 14 years of studying piano your focus changed to film. What brought you back to the music? And how far did you leave the film behind?

 When I was in film school I was still pretty young and unsure of myself. I was actually taking piano lessons at the same time. After film school I spent a couple of years poking around, then I had the good luck to play with a band that had a Fender Rhodes electric piano, and I found I could play in an r&b style. It felt like “This is what I was born to do.” Music can be done by one person alone, and it’s more intuitive and fun than film. But I still see a lot of films. My biggest film heroes are Godard, Bresson, Sirk and Ophuls. I would like to make films again one day.
          

I also read that you are a member of a band called ‘Hall Of Famer’. Please tell me more about it - what are the differences between ‘Hall Of Famer’ and ‘Mantler’?

Hall Of Famer is a project that was started by Sam Allison, who I was working very closely with in Canadia dell’Arte Theatre, and who plays bass on Sadisfaction. It’s a kind of absurdist, confrontational, exuberant band - totally different from Mantler. We played a lot of gigs together in 2000-2001and recorded a lot of demos, which I just listened to again - I think they’re incredibly brilliant and funny. Circumstances have prevented us from completing the Hall Of Famer album project, but the dream is alive.

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In an Interview you said, that the music today is in a bit of an ‘Golden Area’. What does that mean?

I grew up in the 80s, which I thought were kind of stodgy and conservative, especially the late 80s, when it seemed like music was being issued and controlled by one big corporation. The early 90s seemed kind of like an extension of that feeling, but in the mid-90s it seemed like a new feeling of openness and experimentation began filtering into the mainstream. I remember the Radiohead song Fake Plastic Trees sounding so new and fresh in the spring of ‘95. It showed that you could get on the radio with a song that was gentle but still groundbreaking. I think Radiohead took a position in the music world that no one really occupied before, or didn’t occupy for a long time, since the days of bands like Talking Heads  - to be both mainstream and experimental. It culminated two years ago with Kid A, which seemed to say “let’s throw open the doors to experimentation for once and for all.” I don’t know how Radiohead are perceived in ..Germany.., but in ....Toronto.... they’re one of the most respected bands. And when the biggest, most respected band releases an album as experimental as Kid A, that’s really saying something. I’ve discovered there’s a whole bunch of artists in the indie sphere who are consistently producing brilliant albums too - Will Oldham, Jim O’Rourke, The Sea And Cake, Plush, Mouse on Mars...There’s such a proliferation of artists and bands right now.   It could be attributed to the new availability of multi-track digital recording in the last five years, but I think it’s something more.

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To which degree is ‘Sadisfaction’ a part of this “Golden area’?

I would like to have made something that fits in with everything that’s going on out there, but I wouldn’t presume to compare my own stuff with the people I consider the best. I try, but whether I succeed or fail is not for me to say. If it helps some lonely teenager somewhere get through a bad year, the way albums did for me when I was a teenager, then I’ll be happy.

 

 

What are the differences between your debut ‘Doin’ it All’ and ‘Sadisfaction’?

Both albums were recorded on an 8-track, using half-inch tape, and both used the Wurlitzer electric piano. I went for a more muffled, quiet vocal sound on Doin’ It All, and the songs were longer and looser. For Sadisfaction I tried to make the songs tighter, with more chord changes, like a pop album. When you go into a donut store, there’s regular donuts and then there’s ‘fancies’...some chords are regular chords and some are fancies, and on Sadisfaction I tried to use fancies as much as possible.


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You took about three years to record and remix “Sadisfaction”. What were the reasons?

The original recordings were done in 1999-2000 in my own studio, which I shared with Sam Allison and Canadia dell’Arte Theatre. I was working on several other projects at the same time, including theatre and movie soundtracks, and working full-time as well, so that’s why it took a year to finish. I mixed a version of Sadisfaction in December 2000, which was what I sent to Tom Steinle in May 2001. He told me he liked it and wanted to release it, but that it needed to be shorter and have more layers. I tried to rerecord some of the songs digitally, but somehow the results were less good. So I went back to the original tapes and remixed them with Zack Gilbert, who is a trained engineer, in his studio Buenos Banditos. We started that in December 2001 and ended in June 2002. Working full-time and doing music on the evenings and weekends is hard!

             
The new record combines the 60s (songwriting), the 70s (soul) and the now (beats). While writing a song do you begin with the music, the lyric or the beat?

I usually start with the melody and chords. They go through a long process of rearranging and restructuring, then I record demos using the Wurlitzer and Rhythm Ace drum machine. I usually write and rewrite the lyrics several times too. Then I think about the beat. When I have done live shows as a four-piece band, we use a lot of syncopated, funky beats. I’m an r&b fan primarily, so the beats I use are influenced by 70s jazz and r&b, maybe stripped down a bit.

             
The record sounds very sad, and the songs are filled with yearning and inner pain. Why are you so sad?

I decided to make an album with a consistent mood of sadness and melancholy, because the music I like is melancholy. I think everything I do will be tinged with a sad feeling, but in this case, I knew that the title of the album would be Sadisfaction, so the songs had to conform to that mood.  In my day-to-day life I try to be happy and gregarious, and a lot of those sad feelings tend to get pushed aside, so maybe it’s an expression of suppressed emotion. I have happy songs too, but I haven’t recorded them.

             
Why do you use electronic drums? I think it makes the songs even colder than they already are. Was it intentional?                    

I was doing the recordings alone, and didn’t have a drummer at that time. I love the sound of the Rhythm Ace drum machine - it was similar to the one used on a lot of the great 70s albums like Sly & The Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On, Bill Withers’ Just As I Am, Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information and Timmy Thomas’ Why Can’t We Live Together. I don’t find it cold at all - I find it very organic. The other drums that you hear are from a synth, but they aren’t programmed, they’re live, so I think that although it may have the coldness of a synth, they’re not perfectly played so that lends it some warmth. So no, it wasn’t intentional. If it could be warmer I would make it so.


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What is so special about a Wurlitzer organ? Why does this instrument influence you so much?    
The Wurlitzer has a special kind of watery sound. It lends itself to the sad mood because I think it has a naturally sad, crying tone. But there’s also another piano on the album (on Hoped-for Chance and Lately I’m Sad) - the Baldwin Electropiano, which has a heavier, denser, more piano-like sound.

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There is an famous Canadian country singer (10 years younger) also named Chris Cummings. Do you know him? Do you have any relations to him?                          

Yes. He is a famous artist here in ....Canada..... He’s from ..New Brunswick.. and I’m from ....Ontario...., so he’s not a family relation. Then there’s Burton Cummings of the great Canadian 70s pop band The Guess Who - I’m not related to him either. Maybe I should be.....