Alex Fountain was at a karaoke bar in Halifax with a group of friends. He noticed a pretty girl outside of the bar smoking, and he wanted to talk to her. He didn’t know who she was, but that didn’t matter. He walked right up to her and asked for a cigarette.
She gave him one.
He thanked her.
Alex didn’t smoke, but now he had an excuse to talk to her. They talked for a while, and when they went back into the bar, Alex Jumped up on stage, and took the microphone.
“This is for that pretty girl over there,”· he said, pointing to her. “This is for you babe,” and Alex sang that song “Drops Of Jupiter” by Train.
Alex was no stranger to the spotlight, and with his outgoing altitude and quirky personality it wasn’t difficult for him to make new friends.
One of those friends is Andrew Neville.
“We’ve been pretty close friends for about three or four years,” says Neville, who met Alex at a hardcore music show in Halifax. “I had known Katherine, his younger sister. I feel like she probably introduced him.”
Alex and Neville were brought together by their love of music and live shows. They, along with their friends, often went on road trips together, just to see bands they all loved.
They drove to Truro and PEI several times, but their first road trip to Montreal in 2007 sticks out in Neville’s mind.
“I think we left at about seven in the morning. It was Alex’s first time driving any sort of distance, so it was kind of a funny trip. l think we made the drive there in like 11 hours or something unheard of like that,” says Neville with a laugh. “Alex’s rationale was, ‘If l stop I’ll get tired, so I’ll just drive as fast as l can the whole way.’ ”
Alex even made a mix CD for the trip with about 100 songs so they didn’t have to hear the same tune twice.
Music was a big part of his life, and through the Halifax music scene he forged many friendships. He played guitar or bass in several local bands that were beginning to make names for themselves. Alex even sang and wrote insightful lyrics for some of them:
“Every day you push your body to the limit is a day that you can say was well-worth living, and you’ll sleep so much easier when night falls. So fucking push it! Go! There’s no sense staying inside. When you’re feeling low, your bedroom’s no place to hide. Embrace the sunlight. Relieve the throbbing pain that hides behind your eyes, and let yourself cry, and eventually, one of these days, you’ll let yourself smile.”
These are some of Alex’s lyrics from his band Empathy Takes Energy. The song is titled “A Day Worth Living.”
You would easily recognize Alex at a show. He was always the one surrounded by good friends, with an unmistakable kind-hearted smile upon his face.
“He was very consoling and always good to talk to, and always willing to hear out what you had to say, which was probably his best quality,” says Neville. “He was always genuinely interested in the people he kept close, and he really cared about what they had to say. It was the thing that, when I think of Alex, that’s what I think of most. He was really fun.”
Alex stopped going to so many shows over the summer. He started keeping to himself.
“You’d ask him how he was doing and he would say, ‘I’m OK, I’m OK.'”
He put up a very strong front, but Alex was suffering from clinical depression.
“It had been apparent that he was different, but in social situations he was still outgoing and jovial. There were subtle differences I guess. He stopped hanging out a lot, started spending more time alone.”
On August 22, 2009, Alex took his life. He was 20. No one saw it coming. “It fucking sucks. I’m not going to mix words about that. It was really the farthest thing from my mind,” says Neville. “I had known he was sort of down, but I guess I didn’t know the severity of it, or the extent. He knew that people cared about him. At least I really hope he knew that, because I definitely cared a lot about him. He was one of the best people I’ve ever known.”
Alex grew up in the Head of St. Margaret’s Bay with his parents, Fred and Elizabeth, and his younger sister Katharine.
“Leading up to his death, we were talking every day – just very open about things – which is why it was such a shock,” says Katharine. “He was so open with me and my parents that you’d think you would see something like this coming, but I just didn’t.”
Katharine and Alex were very close growing up.
“He was awesome. I couldn’t have asked for a better big brother,” she says. “We did a lot of things together, I guess because my parents are really family oriented. He was really passive. He wasn’t a child that liked to play with fake guns. We always made up random stories with stuffed animals. All that silly stuff.”
It was on Alex’s 12th birthday that he received his first guitar – a red Stratocaster.
“He’d make me sweet homemade CDs, make the mix CD and then do up the artwork for the case,” says Katharine. Alex graduated from Sir John A. MacDonald high school in 2006. He was accepted to the University of King’s College and moved into his dorm room the following year. This year would have been his fourth year of studies. He wanted to be a teacher.
“He was always there for relationship advice. One lime l got in a fight with my boyfriend and we were going to go to a concert, but instead Alex and I went to Modest Mouse together. He was always there for me when I needed somebody. so I’d just text him or call him.”
That concert was the last time Alex and Katharine got to hang out together.
“I’ve had to cope with it a lot, just getting out and living life instead of sitting around and dwelling on it. lt’s like I’m crying but I’m laughing, because I’m thinking of all these hilarious times that we had. Even though he’s gone, I feel really lucky for these 18 years. l got to have such a good relationship with my sibling and some people never even get to have that in their life.”
Editor’s note: Alex Fountain was an Arts Contributor to the Dal Gazette, and a very talented writer. We’ll miss your smile around the office Alex.
This article was originally published in issue 142-04 on October 2, 2009.
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