Abbey Cone’s latest song, “Hate Me” may just be the unique breakup song you have been missing. Co-written by Cone, Jessie Jo Dillon and Nathan Spicer, the new song is a little bit “petty” and a whole lot of truth!
When a break up it hurts to no longer be in love, but perhaps it hurts worse to be indifferent towards each other. Cone has taken the idea of wanting to be remembered by an ex, for bad or good, and penned a new track that bleeds one very clear request – if you are not going to love me, then at least hate me.
“I would say petty, it’s a little petty,” Cone says of the song in an exclusive interview with Celeb Secrets. “I think there’s a certain confidence to it, even though it is a song begging someone not to forget about you and then I would say sassy, I feel like it’s one of my sassier songs.”
Noted as one of her “sassier” songs, Cone shared that “Hate Me” is also probably her “favorite” song she has given the world thus far.
“‘Hate Me’ is actually the song I would’ve loved to put out first,” Cone said. “And so I’m just like the most excited to put it out. It’s probably my favorite song that I have right now.”
This new song that holds a special place in her heart follows her debut release “Rhinestone Ring,” a track about loving someone beyond all material things associated with a wedding.
“So ‘Rhinestone Ring’ is kind of like, I mean, I won’t go as… I wouldn’t say the anti-wedding song…I would just say it’s like a nontraditional, it’s kind of painting like weddings in sort of a nontraditional way,” Cone said.
Combining an outside-of-the-box approach to songwriting with such an incredible voice, Cone is quickly making a large mark on the industry. She has already been named one of Pandora’s 10 Country Artists To Watch in 2022 and for good reason.
The Texas native has now taken her talents on the road by joining Brittney Spencer for the In A Perfect World Tour on select dates. Fans can check out the lineup of tour dates here!
Celeb Secrets Country sat down with Cone (virtually) on her first day of the tour to talk about hitting the road and her new musical hits. She not only shares the creative inspiration behind “Hate Me,” but a behind-the-scenes secret from the music video. Check out the full Q&A below!
Don’t forget to let us know what you think of “Hate Me” by leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sending us a tweet at @CS_Country.
Celeb Secrets Country: You new song “Hate Me” is finally here! How are you feeling with the release pending coming up?
Abbey Cone: “I feel really great. I mean, I put a song out in October and it feels like that was like, that took so long after the pandemic. You know what I mean? And so like, ‘Hate Me’ is actually the song I would’ve loved to put out first so I’m just like the most excited to put it out. It’s probably my favorite song that I have right now. So I’m feeling really good. I’m in grand rapids right now. It’s cold and the first show of the Brittney Spencer tour is today. So I’m feeling great.”
CSC: If you could describe “Hate Me” in two words, what two words would you choose?
AC: “I would say petty, it’s a little petty. I think there’s a certain confidence to it, even though it is a song begging someone not to forget about you and then I would say sassy, I feel like it’s one of my sassier songs.”
CSC: Did you write this song based on past or current experiences?
AC: “So this song now is probably two and a half years old. I wrote it with Nathan Spicer and Jesse Joe Dylan, and it wasn’t written, I mean, I have written a lot of my songs about, you know, true experiences that I’ve been through…. although I have been through this experience, this song wasn’t written about anyone in particular. I just remember being in the writing room that day and us all kind of feeding off how petty it was and how much we loved it. You know what I mean? So we just kind of created this, this story around it.”
CSC: I love the visuals for “Rhinestone Ring.” Talk to me about the creative inspiration for those visuals. What sources were you pulling from to get that look together?
AC: “So ‘Rhinestone Ring’ is kind of like, I mean, I won’t go as, I wouldn’t say the anti wedding song. I would just say it’s like a nontraditional… It’s kind of painting like weddings in sort of a nontraditional way. And so I think with the look, at least with what I was wearing on like the cover of it, I wanted to go a bit more like masculine with it or something, you know? It was like a men’s shirt, like a white men’s button up but I had these like really big swirly pearl earrings, which I thought were like a cool take on, like [how] you would usually maybe wear like a pearl necklace for like a wedding. And then, just having jeans on, I think we kind of just took like almost a masculine, bridal look, you know what I mean? I love the hair so much. I was like, ‘If I ever get married one day, this is how I actually would like to do my hair, just like the braid.’ We shot he video that’s coming out for ‘Hate Me’ and ‘Rhinestone Ring’ in the same day. We actually shot four videos in the same day. I kind of wanted everything to be in the same space. The room we chose to shoot it in, just had these like, it kind of felt like an old church, you know what I mean? It had like the stain glass window and I just wanted them to almost be like really simple music videos just to represent the song well.”
CSC: Your run on tour with Brittney Spencer kicks off today. Are you nervous? What are you most excited for? How are you feeling?
AC: “I’m most excited to be out of the house. I’m feeling good. I woke up this morning. I practiced my song. I kind of like went through my set list in my head. I hadn’t really decided the order. Um, and I still might play it by ear, depending on, I just have no idea what to expect. You know, I haven’t played in two years and, and when I was playing, it was more like songwriter rounds in Nashville and stuff but for this, I’m doing eight days with Britney. I’m actually like traveling with her and her band too. So it’s like, I feel like it’s like 1969. That’s what I’m telling myself. I decided to just take myself and my two guitars. I don’t have a guitar player with me. I think it’s gonna be really great, like experience for me. I’m excited to kind of work out my own sort of anxieties that I’ve built up over the last two years of not playing and just like exercise that muscle again and just gain that confidence back that I feel like I have lost a tiny bit over the last couple of years. [It’s] not that I don’t feel great about it. I just literally haven’t played. And then I’m just excited to watch Brit and to learn and to just to hang out. Yeah, it’s gonna be great.”
CSC: And since we are Celeb Secrets, is there any behind the scenes secret from ‘Hate Me’ that they wouldn’t know just from listening?
AC: “So in the video for ‘Hate Me,’ kind of my thought process when creating the video for it and just kind of how I think about the song in general is it feels like the person singing it feels very insecure, but then also very confident at the same time. You know what I mean? That is kind of two different attitudes to me and I wanted to play into that. We slowed down the song a lot and what happens when you do that is all of the, the filming, It looks sped up. So like you have to slow down the song and I had to lip sync it really slow and so then when you put it in editing and stuff, you put it back to normal tempo and it kind of has this like spastic sort of feel to it. I saw it in like a Weeknd video one time and I was like, ‘I wanna do that.’ Like the movements are a little quicker and that song feels a little bit like manic to me, just a little, but in a cute and sassy way. I’m so excited for fans to hear.”
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