On the Rise
Alix Fernz

But, in case these visual cues aren't enough, his very musical essence can boil down to one anecdote: “I called my dad one morning before class, and I was like, Dad, sorry, but I'm quitting school and starting my own band.”

Decidedly switching things up to continue embracing his lifelong love of music, the career of the Quebec artist has all been about refining and reinventing himself. "I used to think so much about how people would react to my music, and how people would feel about it," he reflects now. "The more I grew up, the more I just realised, Fuck this shit. I'm just gonna do what I want to do, and if you don't like it, fine – I'm gonna have fun." Getting to this declaration has involved its own little pockets of rebellion.

Born Alexandre Fournier, he was raised in a musical household in a village an hour away from Montréal with a drummer father and a “Canadian prog-obsessed mother" (Rush, et al). He began playing drums at seven years old on a cardboard kit he built himself. Spending his time learning Rush songs or outside playing hockey with his friends, Fournier has always been proactive, even to the point of setting up a gifted electric drum kit behind his dad's acoustic kit, turning the young Fournier into a Neil Peart prodigy. “And then that's when I was like, Okay, like, this is what I'm good at. This is what I like to do,” he smiles. “I feel like music is always going to be part of my happiness.”

With choir being introduced to him at seven, this was his life for nine years. Travelling around the world with 500 fellow singers showed him the benefits of collaboration and the power of numbers in music. But it was in his early teens that he finally found the “classic indie” bands, as he refers to them, and, more importantly, the lone-wolf way of doing things.

Citing Mac DeMarco and Tame Impala, and their craft of being studiously driven bedroom producers taking their destiny into their own hands, he decided to build up his skillset. Embarking on various projects, from the drums when he was younger, to picking up a guitar, and eventually piano, it was all under the guise of wanting to learn, but skipping the primp and proper education. Instead, he was radicalised by covers and instinct. It would be when he turned 17 that he started his first project that would gain ground. But first, he had to take a bigger leap.

Receiving an ultimatum from his parents regarding getting a degree, he first had a failed attempt at studying music after he realised the structure and study weren't what allured him to the medium. "I don't like that part of music, I like to do my own thing, like composing shit without knowing anything at all," he chuckles. "And following my guts.” Knowing that he'd have to make a call, he decided that he'd give electrical engineering a go and upped sticks to Montréal. But, one phone call to his dad two-and-a-half years in, and he was on his own.

The Blood Skin Atopic project followed, retracing the fuzzy-guitar-drenched thread of Thee Oh Sees. He manned all aspects from mixing to mastering throughout three albums in four years, but there was still an itch not being scratched. “I did the run of all the bars in Montréal, and then eventually Covid happened, and I just like, Okay, this is like my time to take a break.”

With years emulating his influences, Fournier knew he wanted to explore beyond his boundaries. The break 2020 offered gave Fournier a chance to catch up with himself. “If Covid didn't happen, I probably wouldn't be here right now talking to you,” he posits. “It's funny to say, but I feel like it was a positive thing for me in terms of taking a break.” 20 when the world shut down, and living with five roommates in an apartment, he credits it as being a good time to embrace being young before embarking on his new endeavour. “We all didn't have jobs, we were smoking weed every day and having fun and not caring about anything, and not thinking of making music. That's what I needed, and that's when that ended, I was like, Okay, now I'm ready to change and take another name.”

Looking to expand his musical knowledge, he delved into rock's back pages and pulled out post-punk rather than garage (a la Gang of Four), as well as progenitor punk. He also cites the more contemporary Crack Cloud as being an influential element. “Trying to find my own sound took me a lot of years, and even now, I feel like I didn't completely find what makes me unique," he admits. Alix Fernz, as a project, is indeed new propulsive territory for Fournier. Filled with powerhouse electronics and sheer-faced walls of distorted guitar, with a new wave glint, as a current of artistry and rebellion runs through him, he knows there's going to be morphing and changing that occurs, and he's ready for this.

Fournier is a firm believer in artistic integrity. It's what this iteration of him is entrenched in. He's more than aware of those around him – and beyond – who pay no such heed. “I feel like, when people do it for the wrong reasons, in terms of doing a song to please people, and putting it out on the internet, and hoping to be signed, hoping to make it...glamorising the fact that you want the fame instead of focusing on what the art is, it sounds...it smells, you know?”

While there's a resonant through-line to punk and new wave in Fernz's output, he's still sure to nod to his home turf. “I'm really influenced by everything that's not from Quebec, which is funny but I still think it's important for me to know what's happening around the scene in Montréal, and around the scene in Quebec, because I'm a part of it."

With Fernz heading to the UK as a part of this year's Quebec Spring tour - alongside a plucking of the ripe musical Québécois landscape - Fournier has a deep respect for where it’s come from, even if it feels like a current transformative period. "I've heard so many fucking stories, man, about back when Montréal was the shit, in terms of independent artists and now it's kind of dead. It's dying slowly, but we're all trying."

His 2024 debut as Alix Fernz, Bizou, took him a few years to put together. Released on Canadian weirdo-cultivator label Mothland, compiled from 40 songs, it opened up doors for him that his previous outfits hadn’t, allowing him to take the project outside of Canada for the first time.

Fournier’s stringent authenticity goes hand in hand with his ambition. While, like most, he’d be content with paying his rent with his art, for now, “It's living day by day, and figuring out every day how, how I'm gonna spend the day.” He's working on being less anxious when it comes to things like playing live (“I'm an anxious guy in general, which is something that I have to work on a lot in terms of performing,” he tells me).

He’s not ignorant of what it could take but as with all things in his life so far, he’s chosen the path that his heart pulls him towards, and the rest is the graft he’s more than willing to put in: “I know it's hard, but I'm gonna keep trying, and as long as I do things for the right reasons, I'm going to be happy,” he resolutely explains.