Home Town Tales with Tim Kenific from Death On Fire

Tim Kenefic

The world we live in, it's  big place full of lots of different adventures and styles. So, with that I'm welcoming you to my newest continuing series, Home Town Tales. 

These columns have been created in the hopes that we all connect with the bands on a personal level.

Death On Fire is up first. Fire in the hole as it were.

Let's get to know them as a entity before we head on into this particular hometown. They're a pretty brutal death metal band from Chicago.  You can see all their releases on BANDCAMP.

They've got a split coming out next month featuring three original tunes alongside covers of Prince, INXS, etc. The backside of the split features a new band called Corpse Paint and Dayglo.

I'm interested, but let's find out more now.

1. St. Louis City is my hometown. I've lived here for most of my life in and around the city. Where are you from? 

I am from Fort Wayne Indiana/

2.We have three things that don't really exist anywhere else: the slinger, the gooey butter cake, and toasted ravioli. Tell me about your hometown delicacy.

Indiana is famous for pork fritter sandwiches. Fort Wayne specifically has Coney Island which is one of the oldest continuously ran hot dog stands in America and the best dog you can get anywhere. 

We also have Oley’s pizza. Nothing more needs to be said about that. 

3. In St. Louis, though there have been others. Our biggest hometown team is the St. Louis Cardinals (formerly the St. Louis Perfectos, nee: the St. Louis Browns, not the AL team that moved to Baltimore.) There is nowhere you can go to escape it. I'm a hockey fan, not a baseball fan, so it's a bit weird to me. Tell me about your hometown's big team.

Fort Wayne is a minor league Mecca. The biggest team is the Komets, a long standing and very successful hockey team. 

We also have a Padres affiliate the Tim Caps. They have a great stadium down town. Mad Amts are the D league basketball team. Surprisingly one of the first pro baseball teams was the Fort Wayne Kekiongas. 

We also are the original city for the Zollner Pistons (Detroit). My personal favorite though, the Fort Wayne Rugby Football Club. 

(Ed Note: in 2001, I got into my 1990 Nissan Sentra and drove the five hours to see the Missouri River Otters of the UHL defeat the mighty Komets 5-4 via the shootout. My friend and I were literally the only ones cheering in a packed arena when the Otters won. It was eerie.)

4. St. Louis isn't really known for any one type of music scene. The biggest acts I can think of to get out of here alive were Gravity Kills, Nelly and the St. Lunatics, and Sheryl Crow. There's always been a vibrant concert scene though. What about where you are?

Nothing amazing comes from my home town. Chicago has a ton of notable names and venues. Fort Wayne does have Sweetwater Sound though. 

That is making a big impact in the area and now they have several venues and a starting to have a pretty solid metal scene again. I am proud of where they are going for being an industrial city in the Midwest. 

5. 20 years ago, St. Louis had about 300 murders each year, floods, and all sorts of other fun things. You might have heard about us being named the Murder Capital of the USA. Nowadays, a lot here is 150. But there are lots of parts of the city that are returning to former glory. On the whole, St. Louis is a better place to live today than before. Is there any thing like that where you're from?

Yes, it was never a heavy crime city. It has its problems but on the whole it was a lack of options. 

With a lot of the improvement programs and cultural agendas it is much better. It has been rated as the best place to live in Indiana, least expensive city in the US, and a hipster hit spot(not sure if that is good). 

6. Are you still there? 

After living in Chicago for several years I moved back to Fort Wayne not too long ago. It made sense for work and family. I love my home town but Chicago has a special place in my heart