Approach Influenza as a series which serves to help give insight as to where music is born; these are the thoughts, influences and the inspirations directly from the mind of the artists. In the first of two editions featuring New York City’s Metermaids, one of the group’s two emcees Swell explains the basis for his favorite track on the recently released Nightlife. Relating the feeling of amaze when hearing that of his partner, Sentence’s verse, Swell concludes that the song is essentially the most comfortable starting point when attempting to introduce others to the Metermaids.

On “Feel Alive”:

“Feel Alive,” to me, is the most important song on the album. It started us down a path we had been talking about for a long time – really starting to mesh the indie rock, with hip hop in a way that took the best from each style of music. The song also does the best job of summing up, topically, what the entire album is about.

I had the idea for the hook before we started creating the music, and a basic idea of what I wanted the music to feel like. Matt Stine (our producer/label head) and his equally enormously talented cousin Cody took my vague ideas and put together the bulk of the music in something like twenty minutes. It felt magical how quickly it formed and how dead-on they were in bringing to life what had been floating around in my head.

I don’t remember anything about writing my verse. I remember hearing Sentence’s verse for the first time while he was recording it, and feeling like he had blown me out of the water (again). It’s still my favorite verse of his. “Feel Alive” is the song that I feel most comfortable playing for people when I am trying to explain what Metermaids sounds like. It’s all in there. – Swell

Metermaids “Feel Alive” (mp3)

(Official) (MySpace)

Also: (Pay Up, Here Come the Metermaids)