JC Stewart
Bored during lockdown, JC filmed his quarantine-themed take on the ‘Friends’ theme ‘I’ll Be There For You’, singing “It looks like we’ll be inside for a year/ Or it might only be a day, a week or months it’s really not clear.” It exploded after Jennifer Aniston shared it on Instagram. Suddenly it was featured on ‘Good Morning America’, Nina Dobrev also shared it with her 20 million followers as it raced to 5 million views.
It was a fun moment, but also one that reveals something about JC’s personality. On one hand he’s a quick-witted, heart-and-soul character who counts Lewis Capaldi and Niall Horan as friends, but his songs possess a heart-on-sleeve candour which resulted in his earning the nickname Professional Sadboy. That emotional punch is very much in evidence with the darker theme of his new single ‘I Need You To Hate Me’, which was played by Zane Lowe on Beats 1 last night.
Set to acoustic guitar and understated beats, the song’s verses document the story of a faltering relationship. And as it explodes into life with the soaring hook, the lyrics build in drama as JC’s blunt statement suggests that there’s no turning back: “I need you take hate me, say it to my face, I’ll go.”
‘I Need You To Hate Me’ was inspired by the same break-up that JC explored in his earlier single ‘Have You Had Enough Wine?’.
“There was a moment where we were just going through the motions,” he recalls. “And I was like, ‘Instead of doing this, I’d rather that you hated me because there’d be something more to cling on to.’ The vibe was that we were really drifting apart.”
JC Stewart wrote ‘I Need You To Hate Me’ alongside the song’s producer Matt Schwartz (Yungbl
You can find out more on his Official site
