Formed on the heels of the 2000s indie rock scene, the band was started by college dropout, Pete Burton and former gas station clerk, Luke Sheafer in 2009. The pair met while playing high school football together in Kansas; only to lose touch and serendipitously end up at the same college town in southwest Missouri several years later. The duo shared a mutual affinity for the music of the aughts. Bands like The Strokes, Modest Mouse, The White Stripes, and Franz Ferdinand, would serve as the catalyst to the danceable, guitar-driven rock that Me Like Bees would become known for.