Me Like Bees is an indie rock band out of Joplin, Missouri, that performed as part of Fossil Cove's 2026 Frost Fest last month. While in town, Me Like Bees came to the Carver Center for Public Radio to record a KUAF Live Session with Ozarks at Large's Daniel Caruth. The group began the session by discussing the process behind one of their recent songs that's gone viral, "Bless My Bones."
A: One thing that the internet allows is the lifespan of a song can be way different than what has been in the past. We always talk about what songs do we really believe in and what songs do we like the most. And that was certainly one that the band felt has a very visceral energy to it. It's very, very Me Like Bees in its essence. And so we thought of ways to push it and Pete was like, "Hey, what if we did like a 'Big Lebowski'-type, swirly-swirly video?" So I was like, OK, how do we make that happen? And we did it. Put it out. And I think probably like 12 people saw it. My mom didn't even see it when we put the video out for the record. Real shame.
And then recently we've just been talking about the rise of AI in art specifically. And so I got a bunch of behind-the-scenes footage of us doing that video and a couple of other lyric videos. And we're sort of framing those as, "Hey, guys, everything that you see we do." I just captioned it, "decided to put the hard work in instead of asking AI to do it for me." And it was them fighting with Luke. And then it cuts to the shot that we actually put out like eight months ago — no one cared. And then you see him in the tank, like singing all the words. And then I put some footage of him, the actual reaction he had after doing it at the end, just to kind of tag it.
I woke up one day and it had like 700,000 views on Facebook and Instagram, and then 2,000 Facebook followers in a day. And then just all the stuff, because people were really gravitating to the message behind it. And then we talk about a lot how you can come up with cool stuff like that, but if the song's not good, it's not going to keep people. And so the cool thing is the views actually translated to listens. People listened to the song, they saved the song, they added it to a playlist and they listened to more of our music. So that was really cool. That was a cool thing where we're like, "Oh yeah, the music did its job." The video was just a vessel to get people to listen to a song that we really believe in, and that song's almost a year old now. And it's having the best week over week of its life so far.
Q: You guys have been doing this for a while — you formed in 2010. How has going viral changed things? How has that audience changed and grown, and how does it change how you interact with your fans and with the music industry in this digital era?
A: I don't think it's changed so much as far as — you always want to get new fans and that's how you can do it. But honestly, we survive off of our regular fans that have listened to us from day one and who have heard us throughout the years since our first album, The Ides. That's honestly really what's kept us going. And we've had little small moments of growth. This is probably, if you want to talk about it from an internet standpoint, the most growth we've seen in this short of a period of time. But yeah, really ultimately what we want to do — internet stuff is great and that's awesome, but it's really the regular fans who continue to come out to our shows and support us, buy our vinyl when we put it out because that's really expensive to make, and come to our shows.
Q: "Bless My Bones" is very Me Like Bees sounding, you said. What is a quintessential Me Like Bees sound? When you're writing a song, what's the element that really catches and makes it one of your songs?
A: I'm not sure that I know the answer to that. I think it's like, you know it when you hear it. And you know what isn't you. It's kind of like, through experience and trial and error, you know what sounds like us and you know what feels like it's venturing too far away. Not that — I mean, we're pretty eclectic. But I think that we always have liked writing songs that talk about real things but kind of have a punchy drive to them. So in that very broad sort of definition, probably something like that.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's some changes in it that we used to do a lot more of in the earlier days of the band, where things kind of come out of left field and don't seemingly fit, but we try to make them fit and shoehorn them in to make it a song. For me, it's like — I think Luke was in his bag when he was writing that. Like, see now, "The omen, the harbingers' totem, it's carved with delirium and Gloria Day" — a lot of wordplay. That's actually what he sings in that song for real. And people like that song. Isn't that insane to just think about? I don't even know what I just said. So it's like, I think him being in his bag in terms of waxing poetic, but also not nonsensical — all of that is very intentional. I think that's a very Me Like Bees thing, too. There seems to be a surface-level meaning, but almost every single Me Like Bees song actually has a cornerstone of an idea that was fleshed out to this seemingly simple thing. I think that's in Me Like Bees' DNA as well, for sure.
I would say, as the newest member, I think layers is what I think of when I think of the Bees. Lyrically and musically, there has to be melody — great melodies. And there's always an underlying something or other. But the cool thing about it, I think, is it's not head-on. And it's reachable to everybody, I would argue.
Q: You live in Joplin, you work from there. How is it to live in a place like Joplin? How does that impact your music, what you write, how you produce music and how you engage with the industry? I'm sure there are drawbacks, but there's also probably really fertile ground there. How is that for you guys musically?
A: From a location standpoint, it's great as far as touring. We can go north, we can go east, we can go west — it's kind of a central location. So it's a huge blessing for us. And it doesn't cost as much to live there, so that's super helpful for us.
I would say being in a band requires an intense amount of time. And when you live in a city, you inherently have less time. It takes longer to get everywhere. You have to work more to afford it. So what living in a smaller place gives you is your most valuable resource, which is time. I would say that's the advantage. I mean, you could say there are drawbacks, but if you move to, let's say, Nashville, you're a whisper in a city of screams. Standing out is not going to be easier if you live in Nashville versus in Joplin, in my opinion.
The biggest drawback is you have to use the internet, and I don't always love that. But it's like, we cannot rub elbows with — our booking agent, we met on the internet. We were not rubbing elbows with him at the coffee shop, and that's just not happening. So we had to search for his elbows, and be like, "Please." Cameron's great, and he wanted to rub elbows with us on the internet, which is great. But I think that's the other drawback: your personality and your band dynamic is hard to come across on the internet. That's also what's great about the internet — you can meet whoever you need to meet if you're intentional about it.
Q: Creatively, is there anything about being in Joplin and being in this region — the people that you interact with on a day-to-day basis — that impacts the music that you create?
A: My personal answer is probably no.
I would disagree with that. I think just in this area, especially when we first got started, lots of Joplin bands were around that we played with that we looked up to. Also, people like Randall Shreve and Benjamin del Shreve from here used to always come up to Joplin, and that was a big source of inspiration for us because even in Joplin, they were a big deal and still are. So I think it's just seeing people on stages doing what they love — it's always an inspiration for me, at least, to make an attempt at it. It motivates you: OK, well, you're going to need some songs to go out and play. And then just all sorts of bands in this region that we've grown up playing with. It's more of a relationship thing. And their music inspires us as well.
Q: You have a new single out, "Misery Machine." Can you tell us a little about that and where you're going sonically?
A: What the song kind of means to me is it's about someone who looks at their external circumstances and says the things that they do — even the things that they do to other people — is because of other people. To me, it's about blaming the external for what you could probably take some responsibility for. Pete wrote most of it, so it'd be more his to speak to. Sonically, we're just trying to write the best song we can. Part of the thing with us putting out singles instead of albums is it's just easier from a financial standpoint and a time standpoint. If we like the way it sounds and the way it's coming out, we'll just try and push it as far as we can go into whatever it feels like it needs to be. But I don't know that there's ever really a sense of "something sonically needs to happen in this way." We're all pretty good about adjusting and saying, "Hey, we think this is best for this song." This one's got kind of a '90s feel to it. It's very Pixies-inspired. It's Spoon. It's all sorts of things. I would love for it to sound even a little bit like those if I could, but that was kind of the motivation behind it.
Q: What's been the reception to it so far?
A: The reception has been great. Everyone that has heard it thinks it's great. The music video is out now — watch it. We worked with a great team to make that. Part of the whole ethos of build the world out yourself and do the hard work, and people will find value there. It's been good.
Q: Where can people find you? What's coming up next?
A: You can find us anywhere you listen to music — Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music. Look for tour dates in your city. Come see us. Come see a live show.
That was Joplin-based indie rock band Me Like Bees talking with Ozarks at Large's Daniel Caruth. That interview was recorded as part of the KUAF Live Sessions series.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
