Friends mourn musician killed in car crash
“Don’t focus on the things you hate all the time,” Matthias Foks posted on social media last month. “Remember the things you love.”
On Monday, as the OPP identified the 23-year-old Ottawa man as the victim of a weekend crash on Highway 417 in North Glengarry Township, friends recalled a clearly beloved “great soul” who was devoted to making music and inspired others to do the same.
“He was really genuine,” said Zach Rubens, a close friend and former classmate at École secondaire publique De La Salle who was staying in touch with Foks’ mother Monday.
“There was never a moment that he was trying to be someone he wasn’t. ... He was always there for me when I had troubles. He always took the time out of his day to make sure that I was OK. He was an incredibly family-oriented person.
“Family was really important to him, but ‘family’ was not only his immediate family. It was his closest friends.”
Foks, who studied at Concordia University, sang with the Montreal-based duo Within & Without and was producing music professionally for other artists, Rubens said.
He returned to live in the capital region, but was heading to Montreal to meet a friend on the day he died.
The cause of the singlevehicle crash was still under investigation, but police said his eastbound car went off the road around 1:24 p.m. Saturday, rolled over and landed on the centre median at mile marker 40 near the Maxville and St. Isidore exits.
Foks was pronounced dead in hospital. An autopsy was scheduled, police said Monday.
Details have yet to be finalized, but the funeral is expected to be held on Saturday with a celebration of life later that day at De La Salle high school.
Bandmate Dave Tremblay said on social media Monday that it took him several days to put words to his thoughts because the loss is so “unreal and unfair.”
He described Foks as “ambitious, generous and funny” as well as “extremely talented.”
Tremblay said he would soon release a song and video the duo recorded.
“Rest in peace brother, we all love you so much,” he wrote.