Alix Fernz Makes Ugly Sound Good

From choir boy to cybersigil punk, Montreal’s Alix Fernz tattoos outside the lines—literally and sonically.

By Stephan Boissonneault

Published on October 16, 2025

As I climb up the stairs of a two-storey apartment on St. Laurent, I hear the discordant and eccentric sounds of Lou Reed’s “The Bells” blaring off the entrance door. I soon see Alexandre Fournier, better known as Alix Fernz, Montreal’s spikey-haired, tattooed, synth-punk oddball, as I enter the room. I’m not here to talk music with Fernz, but tattoos. Well, mostly tattoos. He’s got a new album, Symphonie publicitaire sous influence (out October 17 via Mothland), so music, inevitably, does come up.

I was invited to chat with Fernz while he tattoos Philippe Larocque, sometimes known in the music scene as DJ Flâneur, but also as one of the co-founders of his label, Mothland. Larocque is looking to get a cross on his calf to eulogize the great Ozzy Osbourne, who recently passed away, just weeks after his final show with Black Sabbath.

The room is mainly white with a bit of condensation slowly dripping down the walls. In the corner is a vintage suede chair, across from it a table covered in what looks to be magazine clippings. I soon learn they are, in fact, from a vintage fashion magazine, but collaged with gothic-inspired tattoo flash designs. I note that each of the pages has been crudely taped together. “Yeah, shit, let me show you those better,” Fernz says, ripping the pages apart from each other. It seems he’s not too precious with his designs. I spot one, a corpse-painted contortionist with big lips, hands wrapped around his head, sitting on a pile of bones.

“I guess my style is called cyberlisim or cyber something,” Fernz says, searching for the word while his tattoo gun traces out the thick lines of the cross on Larocque. It’s actually called cybersigilism, a style that’s quite new and originated during the pandemic in response to minimalism. It’s a bit like the tribal fad of the ’90s, but incorporates more gothic and futuristic elements, with a strong emphasis on blackwork.

“In the beginning, I was doing more minimal lines, sketchy kind of shit, and I remember being really stressed out cause the lines needed to be perfect,” he says. “I started to do this more gothic style, and I remember it feeling like doing a colouring book instead of doing lines. Now it’s the only thing I can do.”

Fernz started tattooing in the thick of the pandemic. Before the lockdowns, he was living in Hochelaga in a big house with five roommates and working an electrical engineering job in a warehouse shop. The pandemic was somewhat of a blessing in disguise for him, since he remembers being “really fucking depressed” by the job. “You’re standing up all day, sweating, and you work with a bunch of 50-year-olds who have been there forever,” he says. When the shop closed, Fernz, already covered in tattoos, bought a tattoo kit on Amazon and started tattooing himself and his roommates.

“I did like 30 tattoos of just whatever to learn. My left arm is all mine, and I started doing stick and poke, but switched to the machine cause I was impatient.” Tattooing became a new hobby and way to make quick money for Fernz, a constantly evolving battle to fund his music.

“Ahhhh, Broadway only knows, The great white Milky Way,” Lou Reed croons over the tiny speaker. Larocque and I chuckle in unison. “Yeah, I just love this album because his vocals sound so fried,” Fernz says. If you listen to Fernz’s own music, his love for that “fried” vocal style makes sense. Ever since his early days with his past band, Blood Skin Atopic, Fernz has known to put his voice through a ringer of effects, making it sound robotic or mangy.

He actually has nine years of vocal training from his time in a childhood choir when he was 11. That choir allowed him to tour much of Europe and sing backup for the likes of Celine Dion. He remembers the choir being filled with musicians’ sons and daughters who could read sheet music, while he would only learn by ear. Now, Fernz only uses his natural voice rarely, usually with many layers of delay, under a wall of punctuated synths, drum machines, and frenetic buzzing guitars.

“I sing now, but is it really singing?” he laughs. “I was obsessed with King Gizzard when I started, and maybe it was something about being insecure about my real voice. Even when I don’t put on effects, I’ll push my voice to be more unnatural.”

Fernz calls this new project, the follow-up to his successful debut Bizou, more of a “mixtape than an album.” A mixtape of everything he’s done with music for the last four to five years. The last song on Symphonie publicitaire, “CHOC,” is actually a rendition of an old Blood Skin Atopic song. “I really didn’t overthink this one like I did with Bizou. It’s more raw, and it’s only going to get worse from now on,” he laughs. “In terms of the sounds and tones, I’m getting away from pleasing people’s ears. I just want it to be raw.”

Listen to Symphonie publicitaire sous influence – out Oct. 17 via Mothland