“Honey Bee”, the new single from StoneHouse, is deceptively upbeat—or, maybe deservingly upbeat, depending on your perspective. The second single to be recorded and produced from the newly constructed home studio (that has changed their sound in the process), “Honey Bee” is an acknowledgment that a lot of baggage is best left behind when it comes to being a grown-up.
For vocalist and guitarist Mike McGrath, “Honey Bee” is deeply personal. In fact, the new single plays out like a narrative for personal growth. With a new child on the way, McGrath says that he’s gained perspective on life, particularly where it comes to the future he wants for his growing family and how they perceive him.
“It’s about when you come home and you had a shitty day at work and the first thing you do is always bash the ones closest to you or try to drag them down that hole with you,” explains McGrath.
McGrath points out this concept is most prevalent in the chorus of “Honey Bee”, even if it maintains a cheery tune: “I don’t want to see you happy, but I know that I should because it makes me feel good when you feel how you should,” he sings.
“It’s like one of those things where, as cranky as I am, I’m trying to drag you down the same hole and I’m not sure why, I’m not sure why I’m angry, I’m not even sure why I’m being hateful at them,” says McGrath. “Especially when I know, deep down, that’s the best thing that I can do for them is try to make them happy. I feel like it’s one of those things—even if it’s someone who maybe doesn’t have a wife, but they have roommates—it’s the people closest to you that you seem to always unleash on the more or use as a punching bag sometimes.
“It’s about me trying to tell myself that I can’t do that. I have to think more; just growing up and maturing in these kinds of relationships. It’s about going from that childish kind of carelessness when it wouldn’t matter what I did or said to where I’m getting to an age now when I really have to take that stuff into consideration. Especially with a baby on my own on the way. It’s totally a game-changing kind of thing. Makes me rethink who I am and what I want out there for when I do have a little bastard who is running around. I know what I want them to see. I don’t want to see a guy who comes home and starts dragging everybody down around because I build houses in the cold all year.”
McGrath says he’s put an emphasis on the uplighting nature on this song that is pretty close to his heart and it’s probably fitting. After all, it is all in the name of a positive change.
“It really is all about treating the ones closest to you the way that you know they should be treated, and not dragging them down and burying them like a doormat every day just because they’re the ones there, right?”
“Honey Bee” follows the release of the StoneHouse’s most popular single to date, “Holy Water,” and their first single to emerge from the band’s new at-home studio.