As a youth, guitarist extraordinaire Erik Mongrain was, frankly, more into sports than music.

Born in Montreal in April 1980, Mongrain grew up listening to the

As a youth, guitarist extraordinaire Erik Mongrain was, frankly, more into sports than music.

Born in Montreal in April 1980, Mongrain grew up listening to the heavy sounds of Jimi Hendrix, Metallica and Nirvana. He received a classical guitar at age 14 as a gift and was sufficiently inspired to learn many of his favorite songs by ear; he bought his first electric guitar at age 15, on which he was delighted to learn to play Nirvana songs.

Mongrain continued to teach himself guitar throughout the remainder of his teenage years, composing his own music and learning classical Bach melodies by heart. At age 18, he discovered and was subsequently influenced by fellow Canadian guitarist Don Ross; Mongrain also chose to concentrate on acoustic guitar rather than electric during this period. Another major discovery for the young guitarist was the contemporary music of late U.S. steel-string guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Michael Hedges, which Mongrain referred to as “a true revelation to me.”

On his own, Mongrain discovered and experimented with a tapping technique (similar to that used by Stanley Jordan) in which the guitar is laid face-up on the lap and played using a two-handed piano-like tapping method; thus constituting an entirely different way of playing the instrument. In capable hands such as Mongrain’s, the technique’s effect is spectacular, and he won many of his first fans during his years as a street musician using the technique in U.S. and European streets and subway stations.

A journalist who came upon the then-21-year-old Mongrain tapping away on his guitar on a sidewalk in Granada, Spain, wrote a newspaper article predicting that Mongrain would graduate to the Barcelona subway before ending up recording for “world-class major labels.”

Mongrain continued researching and exploring music; his reputation grew and, around 2005, he resumed a standard guitar posture. He appeared on two songs on French singer Lynda Lemay’s 2005 album Un Paradis Quelque Part and on the 2005 Les Pourris de Talent compilation from Montreal-based French Canadian cable channel MusiquePlus.

In December 2006, Mongrain’s first full-length album, Fates, was made available on his website as a series of individually downloadable songs. A CD version was released in June 2007.