“Dear God, I Hate Myself” is not a pleasant thought.

But it’s one Jamie Stewart had and needed to deal with. The singer-songwriter leader of Xiu Xiu wrote a song with that thought as its title and released it on the band’s seventh full-length studio album, also titled Dear God, I Hate Myself, earlier this year.

“I found myself saying it one night,” Stewart said. “I was literally on my knees in an extreme state of distress. And it’s a sentiment that, socially, one finds it that one has to keep it to themselves. It’s bad enough having to feel that way, in addition to feeling ashamed to feel that way.

“So [releasing a song and album by that name] was just an intent to document this time of really intensive self-loathing and also an attempt to make that sentiment something that is slightly more public,” he added.

Xiu Xiu — known for Stewart’s emotional lyrics and the group’s intense musical backdrop — will play Wednesday at DC9 in Washington. Stewart said he hopes Xiu Xiu’s provocative music stirs its listeners.

“The point of any song that we would do is that hopefully someone would get something out of it,” Stewart said. “What they get out of it is their own business, and we wouldn’t want to inject any sort of credo to how somebody may come to think about something. But that’s absolutely the point — that hopefully someone will get something out of it.”

For Stewart, personal songwriting became a revelation after listening to the music of Joy Division — a band with music that belies its name.

It’s bands like Joy Division, The Smiths and a host of others that helped shape Stewart’s perception of music. Xiu Xiu has paid homage to its influences in countless ways, including numerous covers.

The point is “to pay tribute to those particular artists that have meant something to us,” Stewart said. “Any time we do a cover, it is meant as a thank you note more than anything. We’re not trying to reinterpret it in our own image in some way, although that’s obviously inevitable that we would. But the point is not to foist ourselves upon it.”

Stewart said he “wouldn’t in a million years say that [Xiu Xiu is] carrying on in their stead.” Yet the band’s work consistently references those influences, and this practice does not seem likely to stop any time soon.

In fact, among the band’s many tour dates this year is a stop at the donaufestival in Austria where Xiu Xiu will perform Joy Division’s classic 1979 debut LP, Unknown Pleasures, in its entirety, collaborating with experimental pop band Deerhoof.

The idea for the Unknown Pleasures show came about after donaufestival’s promoter asked Xiu Xiu to put on a special performance at this year’s event.

“We, of course, agreed to play the festival, and it came time to figure out what to do,” Stewart said. “The deadline was fast approaching [to submit the plan for the concert], so we needed to figure out something that would be both meaningful for us and that we could logistically figure out how to do.

“And it made sense that — considering how important that record is to us — [playing Unknown Pleasures] seemed like something that could be meaningful to attempt to tackle.

And Deerhoof is another band that, along with Joy Division, that completely changed my view of what music could be. So it made sense to try to combine both of those bands into one show.”

Stewart said another performance of this kind may happen in New York, but he insisted the band is dedicated to doing only one performance of the album per continent.

As for how those two bands changed Stewart’s perception of music, the groups’ inspiration laid the foundation for how Xiu Xiu writes songs.

“With Joy Division, it was being extraordinarily open about your personal life within music,” Stewart said. “And with Deerhoof, it was not so much thematic as it was actually musical.

The first time I had heard one of their records — it was one of the first records that I had heard combining super intense instruments with really, really beautiful melodies. Both of those things are what we kind of essentially try to do [in Xiu Xiu]: write as personal songs as you could but then also combine that with pop or pretty melodies.”

There’s nothing pretty about self-hate, but Xiu Xiu sure makes beautiful songs about it.

Xiu Xiu will play at DC9 on Wednesday. Doors open at 8:30 p.m. Tickets cost $12.

rhiggins@umdbk.com