Hometown Tales with Striker

Striker

Remember our good friends Striker?

You may or may not recall that they're from the snowy city of Edmonton, Alberta up there in the Fabled Canadas.

There's somewhere I've never been personally. So it's nice that we're getting some insight into Western Canada from the views of these metal bands up t here.

Let's find out more about Edmonton!

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?

We are from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Actually we were mostly all born and raised here! Our vocalist Dan was born outside the city but came here very young. 


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.

I think green onion cakes were invented here? Or at least that's the anecdote I've heard. We also have some amazing donut shops! 

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.

The Edmonton Oilers! They are also inescapable in our city. Our guitarist Chris even has season tickets. Oilers vs the Blues isn't much of a rivalry, but we have lots of others in the West!

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?

Edmonton has always had a pretty great live music scene from what I can remember. Lots of tours come through here too because people go out to shows and buy merch, etc. 

For example, when Metallica filmed their 3D movie a few years back, they played here for the warm up shows and we got to be the direct support act! 

In terms of big acts coming out of Edmonton, a lot of people end up leaving for Vancouver or Toronto, or to the US. Nickelback came from a town not too far away; many people consider them "local."

Other than that, not too much!

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 anything like that where you're from?

150 murders a year? What the hell? According to StatsCan, there were only 600 murders total in all of Canada for 2016... (note: yeah, we have about 15,000 gun deaths per year in the USA.)

There's certainly nothing like that in Edmonton. Remind me not to get murdered next time I'm there! Edmonton has a new "ice district", a redeveloped downtown around our new NHL arena. 

Only murdering going on there is on the ice.

6. Are you still there?

Still in Edmonton!