Ones2Watch Home

After years of musicmaking and experimentation, Dev Lemons’ debut album SURFACE TENSION arrived late this summer, a raucous, energetic collection of songs that sees the LA-based singer-songwriter’s musical stylings honed in now more than ever. Dancing between alternative emo rock and pop, Dev explores heartache, anger, and confidence, all while being loud and unapologetic. We got the chance to sit down with her to chat about the album, her upcoming tour, and yes, artificial moon theory.

OnesToWatch: I feel like your sound, and this album, specifically, is sonically pretty cheeky and experimental. And then there's also this underlying sense of earnestness within your lyrics and the writing that comes through. You seem to be able to strike an impressive balance between vulnerability and playfulness. So I'm wondering if that's something that you think consciously about. Is that just how you move through the world?

Dev Lemons: I feel like, yeah, that is kind of how I move through the world. When I make music, I kind of like to turn my brain off as much as I can because I feel like it actually lets me dive into the subconscious of what I'm feeling. So I feel like it just depends on what I'm going through that day, I guess, or how I'm feeling. The second I feel like I'm thinking too hard it's like, “we gotta just reset.” There's been times where I'll go into the session and I'll want to make a song that's like, heavy metal, you know, and then it's just like, “this isn't working because I just am not feeling this.” And then something else will just happen sonically, like we'll just start another song while we're talking. And Jondren would just be playing the guitar, and I'd be like, “Oh, let's do that actually. Let's just make an acoustic, beautiful song.” 

A total 180.

Yeah the amount of times that happens is…a lot, but then it ends up being a really cool song. It’s like, “This isn’t what I wanted to do today but this is what had to happen, and I like it.”

They say the best ideas come from when you're just in the shower, zoned out because you're pretty much ‘brain off’ letting stuff come up. That’s so cool. So you mentioned Jondren (Hwang), your collaborator on this album, who, correct me if I'm wrong, he helped produce and mix every song?

Yeah, he produced and mixed every song.

There must be a lot of trust that goes into working so closely with someone on your debut album. How’d you guys meet? How did that relationship develop?

It's so awesome. He's literally my best friend ever. I've known him for so long. We met in college, because he went to Berkee and I went to Emerson. I knew people who knew people there who knew him, and then we just sort of became friends. Through making music together is when we became really close. We didn't make it while we were actually at college together. We started when COVID happened, and I was living remotely, like I didn't do my senior year in person, because fucking COVID. I think he was in Boston, or maybe he was in California, I don't know, but I had an a capella [version] of an entire song I wrote. I had the song written and I was just like, “Can you take this and build a beat around it?” And then he was like, “Yeah.” And then he sent it back a week or two later, and it was insane. It was literally perfect. I was like, “How'd you do that? Can you just add this one section and then it's done.” And that song was “One Whole Me.” That was how we made that song. And then after that, I was just like, “Damn, we should really lock in and keep making stuff.” So then he lived with me for like two months, and we just tried to make a bunch of shit. And I would visit LA back and forth and make a bunch of shit. And we've just been working together so much, and through doing that, we've become really good friends and now he’s literally my best friend ever. I would kill for him.

That's awesome. So did you live in Boston for a period of time before you were remote? How’d you like it?

I like it. It's really cold. I think it's such a beautiful, beautiful city. I lived in downtown Boston because Emerson's campus was right across from the Boston Common and I loved it. It was really fun, but it was also really cold and sometimes really cringe, but it was so awesome. I loved it there…best, best, best four years of my life…not really.

You studied comedy writing, right?

Yeah, I studied TV Writing technically, but I was like a film major. It was kind of bullshit. Like, “Oh yeah, I studied writing for film and television.” I'm in a fucking ‘DNA and Society’ class, and I took one ‘TV Writing’ class, and I'm in general film class for the rest of it. It was just kind of like silly, just art school bull crap, but it was so fun. I learned a lot because I got into film school, not knowing anything about film, because I got in with a play I wrote. 

Oh, that's cool. What was the play?

Yeah, pretty awesome. The play was called Real White Housewives, and it was a one-act play of the Real Housewives reunion, you know, where they're all in the circle, but the housewives were the candidates of the 2017 Presidential Election. That was my one-act play…one hit wonder.

I also lived in Boston, in Back Bay. It was pretty lame during COVID.

Yeah, it was so weird. I remember when it happened, like the day that all the schools got sent home and shit…my birthday, by the way. And we got the email, “Okay, everyone's gonna have to go home,” on my 21st birthday! I thought we were supposed to be lit! It was so fucked. And I have pictures of it, like Washington Street. I had to leave my dorm at a certain point, and I was in a hotel with my mom. And we were on Washington Street and just seeing it completely empty in the middle of the day on, like a Saturday…I was like, “what the fuck?” I liked that vibe, though. Like, COVID sucked and it was really hard for a lot of people, and it was weird. But there were a lot of good vibes during COVID that I feel like aren't around anymore, like everyone was so empathetic. Where’d that go? Like, everyone forgot…empathetic and patient.

So when you were looking at schools, did you ever think of going to school for music? Did you grow up playing music? How did you decide on film?

Honestly, I grew up listening to a shit ton of music. I always loved it as a thing, and I would dabble, like I got an electric guitar because my seventh-grade crush on the internet was a guitar player. So I was like, “I could get a guitar and impress him.” I sucked at it. I gave up pretty quickly. And I always tried to play piano because, you know, why not? But it was hard, couldn't do it really good, and I never got lessons. I tried flute in the fourth grade - too expensive, had to quit. But I always loved listening to music, so I would really listen to everything. Making music as my job was never what I thought I was gonna do, like, it was never my dream career; it was always just a passion. I always wanted to be an actor on TV and movies and shit. But then music just kind of naturally happened for me because I was putting so much of my time into it, because it's what I really love to do. So it's like, “Okay, well, maybe that's actually what I'm supposed to be doing because I just naturally keep doing that way more than I consume TV and film and make my own shorts and stuff like that. I'm making music instead of doing that. So maybe that's what I actually want to do.”

Well, you kind of get to do both, right? Because you have a lot of content that you put out, which I think is really important for artists. To be able to grab people’s attention visually is also really cool.

Thank you, yeah, I feel really lucky that I actually really enjoy making content. The stuff I'm making now actually feels like I get to use that creative side of my being that likes making TV and film and acting, you know, because it's so hard to do that on social media and have it translate. I'm really grateful that I like doing that, because if I wanted to be a musician and I hated making content, I'd just be so mad.

There are definitely phases, though, where I fucking hate making content, and I feel like I have to to get the music out there. And I feel like if I don't post about it, no one will care. And then there are chapters where I do post about it, and then no one cares. And then I get really mad. So I'm just trying to make stuff that I'm proud of at the end of the day, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who looks at it.

I've heard you talk about how all the visuals for this album kind of came to you as you were making the songs. Of the ideas that were coming to you, are there any that we didn't get to see? How was it bringing your ideas to life visually?

Yeah, there is one idea that no one has seen because I’m doing it still. No one got to see it yet, but they're going to - I'm doing a music video for “MEDIA TRAIN” and it's going to be so cool. I'm really excited. It'll probably not come out for a while, though, but I've been wanting to do this idea for a while, and we're gonna do it, so I'm excited.

Nice, do you have a team of people who help you with your visuals?

It's really just my friends, like whoever can normally, but, yeah, my friend Justin is going to help me with this video. He's so cool, so talented, and his friends are going to help too. And I don't know them yet, but they're probably also really cool.

You lean into a lot of uncanny, surreal, unsettling vibes with your content. Is there a certain feeling you want to evoke? Do you just like scaring people?

I feel like I like to make people laugh, but not because it's necessarily a joke…with my content, it's like, “well, what's the joke?” How do you explain the joke of it? But it's just kind of so odd that you can't help but laugh, you know what I'm saying? It's just so like, “what the fuck am I watching?” uncomfortable that you're laughing because you're uncomfortable and you don't know what else to do.

In the song “DON’T PINCH ME,” when you sing “I think I have some demons I cannot defeat,” what are your demons?

Me and Jondren were sitting there, trying to write that song, and he came up with that line. I was just like, “Yeah, sometimes, when I think too much, I can't sleep, and when I'm hungry, I drink too much, I can't eat.” And he was like, “Yeah, and I have some demons that I cannot defeat.” And I was like, “Ohhhh yeah.” But if I had to pick my demons - definitely, they live in the backrooms of In-N-Out Burger. I think about going there every day, probably. I have a problem with…I don't eat in my house. I buy groceries and I don't eat them. But now I'm really trying to stop doing that. Like, I walk to the grocery store every day now, because it's like, “I'm only going to buy what I'm going to eat today and what I know I'll eat. Like, I know I'm going to eat this, I know I'm going to eat it. I have to.” But then it screws with me, because then I only have groceries for one day, and I have to go to the grocery store every day. So my demon is that I wish I lived a healthier lifestyle, where I would always cook and like run.

But it's so fun. I love walking to the grocery store. I love my demons, all my demons. 

I'm like… I’m a bad driver, is what people say. Like, I don't break with enough time in advance. I break too quick. I accelerate towards a red light, and then I brake when I get there. And I never noticed that, because when you drive, you don't notice what it's like to be in the passenger seat. But every time I'm driving, the person in the passenger seat is like, holding the [handle]. Like, “Are we good? If you have any…like, I can take feedback. Just let me know. I can try to drive better.” It's so funny. The other day I was driving with my friend and I didn't realize this because I've been just hanging out with her more, and she drives the same way. She'll whip the car and she'll break like, I think we're gonna die, like, right before the car. And I'm just like, “Oh, this is what it's like for the passengers in my car, probably. I get it now.”

You’re just trying to get from point A to point B as fast as you can.

That’s what I’m saying. I’m so impatient, but I’m working on it.

There’s a lot of anger, sadness, and confidence that comes through on the album. And obviously these are real emotions that you really felt. Was there a sense of catharsis or healing that came about when you were writing? How do you feel about those experiences now?

Yeah, there was definitely a lot of healing. This album is about a bunch of different shit. I feel like I see a lot of comments of people thinking that certain songs are breakup songs that just aren't. The only real, actual breakup song on it is “NOTHING CHANGES.” And that one felt really good to write. It was really hard, and that song helped me. It was a really hard time in my life when I was writing that album, honestly, it was tough. I was going through a bunch of different stuff, and it was over a long period of time I was writing the album, so a bunch of stuff was happening. So certain songs were about certain people and family stuff, and just letting all of the pain and the spite and the anger out of my body and using the music to process it. I feel like after I put out the album and listened through it, I was like, “Damn, I'm in a bad mood. I sound like an asshole in a lot of it, but I don't know, I was going through a lot, and it was just how I was honestly feeling and stuff. So I can't really be mad about it.

Do you think it's easier for you to write songs where you're expressing these negative emotions? Is it easy for you to write a love song? What comes easier to you?

No, unfortunately, it's not easy for me to write a love song - never has been, and I think that it's probably because maybe someone needs to…I need to be loved better. But, I don't know. I've always used music to process how I'm feeling. I feel like it's always been a really good way to sort through when I'm going through something. It's like journaling, you know? Like, I don't really journal that much when I'm doing good, but when I need to sort out emotions, is when I’ll fill up a whole notebook in a month, you know what I mean? So I feel like music is kind of the same thing. I wish I could write more love songs. I feel like my equivalent to a happy song is a nothing song, like “DON’T PINCH ME” is kind of my happy song. I write a lot of songs about longing. It's not negative, necessarily. It's just like, “Ooh, I like this person so much, but I feel like they don't like me back, or like they want someone else or something. And that makes me sad, because I like them so much.” That's nice of me.

It’s like cheaper therapy.

Yes! Well, is it though? Because then when you put the damn songs out, it's like, I have to pay for all this stuff.

At least when you work through the emotions, you get to put something out that other people can connect with, too.

Yeah, and it's so fun working with other people, too. I love to make music by myself. I do make a lot of music by myself that I either just don't put out or I put out on secret little side projects. But I love making music with other people because it's just such a fun way to bond with people and learn about other people. And I feel like really special friendships come out of making music together, because you just get to know a lot about someone, especially the shit I'm making. It's like, “Oh, so what's what's going on?” It's just fun. You get to gossip. It's so fun.

It can be pretty vulnerable to make music with other people.

Yeah, it’s so embarrassing sometimes. It’s literally so embarrassing. Like “Oh I have to track vocals? And you don’t have headphones on?”

You’ve shared about Dev Lemons being this outlet for all your creative sides/ways of expression. How do you think your art has changed or evolved since the inception of Dev Lemons and where do you want to go next with your music?

I feel like the more I make music, the more I just try so many new things. And then over the course of time, after trying new things, the more I do it, the more I feel like I’m surprising myself, I guess. So that’s really cool. And where do I see it going? Well, I’m working on my next album. I was working on my second album while I was still working on my first album. So it’s really weird because it’s with two different people. The album I’m making, the second one, is with this guy named Emmett Kai - he’s awesome. The songs I was making for the second album, while I was making the first album, are a different vibe because I was just going through stuff at that time that was making me feel insane mentally, like crazy. So the lyrics are different than what I’m writing about now, and the sound is different, and there are so many songs that are loud, but they don’t need to be loud. But I really wanted to make loud stuff because I was making a lot of loud stuff for my first album and was like, “Let’s keep doing loud.” I love doing loud. It’s so fun. But now that we’re really settling into the process of really focusing on this second album, I’m just not going into it wanting to make anything and just doing stuff and going with the flow and I feel like we’re doing a lot of stuff that is really cool as a result. It’s special. It’s weird. Well, it’s not that weird. It’s like a mixture of indie rock, shoegaze, and sort of heavier rock, nostalgic stuff - that mixed with kind of R&B-pop style vocal melodies and stuff. There’s some songs where it’s like heavy-rock toeing the line of metal, but then on top of it is like R&B pop, catchy little earwormy melodies. It’s cool.

Talk to us about tour! It’s been two years since you’ve toured, right?

Technically, yeah, it’s been two years since I’ve toured the Dev Lemons project. Around now two years ago is when I was touring that. But I went on a tour for the other project I had last summer.

What’s changed since the last time you were on tour?

Since the tour two years ago? A lot. Even the tour last summer…sooo much has changed in my life. 

What are you looking forward to about being back out on the road?

I think this tour experience will be very different from any other tour experience I’ve had. I’m hype. I think it’ll be really nice. Everyone on my team respects me. It’s such a short tour, too. I’m looking forward to it being short. At first, I was really mad about it because I was like, “This is stupid. Why don’t we just do the whole country?” But it’s been a while, I get it. And also, I’m happy to kinda wet the whistle on a short tour, and then I’ll do a longer tour where I do the East Coast and like the up and down and whatever later in the year. But I think it’ll be nice to just do some West Coast shows and get settled into that, and I’m really excited. The production value’s going to be higher than anything else I’ve done before, too. Like, each time I play a show or go on the road, I feel like I try to make it better.

Okay, I have a rapid-fire question series if you can answer these in a sentence or two.

Okay, I’ll try my best.

What is your most controversial music opinion?

Uhmm, oh I don’t know. Controversial? This is not gonna be that rapid-fire. How am I supposed to know? Dude, I don’t know. You know, I don’t really care about things that people care a lot about I think. There’s certain things with music, like “Oh this person sounds this way on their tour,” and “Oh this person’s live vocals suck,” and “This person uses autotune.” I think everyone cares too much about stupid shit. My hot take is people need to go outside more and stop giving a shit.

What’s a song you wish you wrote?

Oh my god, probably some Amy Winehouse song, probably “Some Unholy War” or something like that. Or “Goodies” by Ciara. “Not my goodies!”

Who would play you in the movie version of your career so far?

Probably…the embarrassing thing about me is I don’t know any actors. Maybe Brittany Broski. Or I would cast Angelina Jolie, Kendall Jenner…

Sydney Sweeney...

Sydney Sweeney, yeah Sydney Sweeney, you can write that I said that. Zendaya…

Leonardo diCaprio

Yeah, Leonardo diCaprio! Will Smith…

Will Smith in the role of a lifetime…

What is your current hyperfixation?

Ooh…Artificial Moon Theory

Oh?

It comes up a lot for me in conversation. I learned about it recently and I just talk about it a lot. I’m on the cusp of coming out of that as my hyperfixation, like it’s on its way out and something else will come in soon. It’s like the aliens drove the moon here, apparently. It’s hollow inside. I’m not saying it’s true. I’m not saying I believe it. I’m just saying what some people say is that the moon is hollow on the inside. If you Google it, you’ll find the diagram. It’s hollow on the inside, and the aliens drove it here as a spaceship, and they put it wherever the moon is. And then they parked it there to try to make the Earth habitable, but then they just went somewhere else I guess, and they left it there. And the moon’s only been here for 12,000 years? And maybe we didn’t go back to the moon after we “went to the moon” the first time because we found something there that we didn’t want to see…that the moon is fake and driven here by the aliens.

If your music were a flavor, what flavor would it be?

Cotton Candy…I like that flavor. Or mint chocolate chip.

If your life had a loading screen, what song would play?

Let me look it up. It would probably be “FROG FLY BYE BYE FROG” by COCKAHOLICS.

Who are your OnesToWatch?

Ooh, let me look. My OnesToWatch are Lucy Bedroque, MexikoDro, and Sugar Cherry.