Beyond the Surface, Cutting the Tension with Dev Lemons

Words by Matthew Spence:

Choose your weapon of choice: a documentary, an exhibit at the Met, or a nostalgia-drunk IG post soundtracked by a somber 2010s indie track. The evolution of household entertainment is something that can’t go under or be overlooked. Soon, cable boxes will be buried with Atari games and our deep “I Know What You Did Last Summer” secrets because, in the roaring and sore-given 2020s, channel surfing on the Hawaiian Punch-stained couch has been replaced by searching through streaming services.

In the sea of unlimited entertainment, so to speak, YouTube is perhaps the basic cable of them all (remember basic cable?). While making us work a bit harder to acquire our taste of entertainment of random Jeopardy facts and fart jokes, in some shape or form, many channels, sectors, and personalities on the platform are, in essence, beneficiaries of what our favorite TV channels started. We have our TBS entertainment, your sister likes (think Kurtis Connor and Drew Gooden; people like that I throw them in that category imo), and all those true crime investigation channels and food channels your grandma adores ever since Oprah and Ellen stopped hosting talk shows. [Sadly, SpikeTV’s energy is still around with the manosphere and bro content.] Now, in a time where channels that were poster children of culture are being left in the dust, plenty of creators are putting their best foot forward on the Internet and redirecting culture, but the spirit of the channels lingers in the air. On the red carpet for the Best Example Awards is Dev Lemons, who holds a personality meant for MTV and MTV2.

Eclectic from top to bottom, Dev Lemons [hold the ade] wears plenty of titles: creator, YouTuber, personality, DIY teacher, PDA photobomber, and most importantly, musician/artist. In the vast realm of the internet, it’s fairly easy to become a name lost in the alphabet, but for a few years, she’s been building up her career little by little, and now it seems to be paying off in many facets. Now her name rings bells, so to speak. Creating a world of music: evolving from her first go-around as Miss iPad, making endearing bedroom pop, to her current version in life as Dev Lemons, working with the likes of Grade A producers Billy Lemos and Quadeca to make a mirage of sound inspired by pop of the hyperkind as well as bedroom, among other inspo.

Laced with sweet Bridges’ playful melodies, it feels as if she takes the pop structure and sweetens it up to her liking. Crafted a few EPS over the past few years: Lemontopia (2021), Delusional (2023), and Songs with the Volume On (2024), all leading to now in 2025 with the release of her debut album, “Surface Tension.” Right next to it on her resume to impress, she’s not only gained a following in music but also as a content creator. YouTube, yo. Spread across a couple of channels: SongPsych to Dev Limes, builds her own creative world that exudes what can be done if you follow your own path of individuality and creative freedom. Give a kid a Lego set and let them build what they want, versus what the box instructs and indicates.

Thankfully for Dev’s case, her creative free will has led to her hundreds of thousands of streams, a dedicated fan base, touring with the Plain White T’s, and a consistently growing career. Residing in LA now, but rewind the tape, and it all starts with a Boston girl who just loves music and loves to create. As the record plays, we see her soundtrack to the journey of her future: Bring Me The Horizon, Pierce the Veil, etc., that made her jump from being an avid fan of music to wanting to be a part of it in any way she can. Soon she learned to play her own instruments and craft around music, but all to herself; the music was public, but she wasn’t public about it (ultimately her friends found out, and it led to a roast session), but her second go-round came at the same spot where many people get a second chance to start over: college. Film school, to be exact. With music on the back burner, she decided to pick a backup again once she noticed a lot of her classmates didn’t strictly do filmmaking but also endeavored music and other creative outlets. So Dev realized that she didn’t need to stress like Troy Bolton.

She chose to add music to her own personal curriculum and went 1000% in this time around to flesh out her artistry and try to enhance theory. Unknowingly beginning to connect her two worlds like a bridge, she’d begin the Citrusverse, so to speak.

Dev has left a digital footprint that some or many would trade in their family legacy for. From her beginnings with her channel, SongPsych: music academia’s radical child. With SongPsych, she gives a middle finger to the snobs and a welcome in hand to up-and-coming music nerds by teaching and breaking down music in the theory behind it and in its most simple and layman’s terms. Not elementary to patronize, but to save from the headache of being stuck in a loop trying to understand the circle of fifths. Cherry on top: discussing music topics as well as sitting next to, breaking down music. However, in a bittersweet way, we all quietly graduated, as the last video on the page was in 2023, and Dev transitioned away from the channel for reasons under a secret file named “None of Your Damn Business,” as I named it. Business is a bitch is all I can say.

However, the pushers keep on pushing, and Dev was slowly transitioning out of SongPsych and into more of self-branded content, as you can see on her Dev Limes channel. Ranging from “Journey Finding Love,” as she trolls many bachelors and bastards on dating apps like Bumble and Tinder [respectful to stay away from BlackPeopleMeet]. Being a more entertaining and awkward love story than anything Judd Apatow could write and Michael Cera could star in. Yet her more popular series, “Recreating Songs Without Hearing,” is where she brings out her SongPsych education; it’s a good use, as she picks a popular song and, well… recreates it without hearing it. Self-explanatory. She just goes off music theory notes, memory of the original song, and being a wiz on the music program. All could lead to holding a judge’s scorecard of “not half bad,” “better than I expected,” or “yep, this is exactly what I expected.”

But if you’re into the off-kilter, her latest series of “POV Dates” is eerie but fascinatingly accurate to her creative arsenal and charm.

Now, “Is Dev the same in person?” To answer that, I have to say… kind of. Famed not only for her talent as a musician and creator, but also for her personality, which has become synonymous with her on-camera presence. What helps seals the appeal, she has this vibrant personality holds quirk and wit that feels a bit awkward/bizzaro at times but, yet planted with moments of earnestness and honesty. Safe to say Dev would give Jim Carrey a Kaufman complex and Andy Kaufman a Lynchian complex.

She could be a guest on the Eric Andre show but yet sit down with Larry King [R.I.P.]. Be on the soundtrack to an A24 film and create a musical masterpiece for YouTube Poops. Probably as an inspiring Grammy speech in her back pocket and a Crank Yankers prank script on her phone. A personality blurring the line between magnetically quirky and unhinged, personifying it to where it feels like a misdemeanor. But rest assured, Dev is going to keep authenticity, as she once said in an interview from 2021, “It’s absolutely impossible to be your 100% self, unadulterated full genuine self in front of any type of camera. But I honestly feel like I’m as close as I can be to my real self. I think I just show a more unhinged version of myself online.” Authenticity may be laminated for some and like lime in the eyes for others; all in all, it’s what’s been keeping her on track to flesh out a music catalog full of what feels like twists and turns, so to speak. M. Knight Shyamalan, we need to go to her for advice.

Keeping the folks in the loop as real-life reaction gifs. Her musical footprints range from bedroom pop jams like Guessing Games to her Miss iPad days with tracks like Come Back Tonight, a ukulele-driven ode to yearning for the one you love. Her dichotomy of evolving with bizarro and commendable creativity in music and content between what you see on YouTube and her music would make many speak a thousand words and ask a thousand questions. Translation isn’t truly lost; she’s been able to play her game at her time and pace.

Case in point: her side project with her ex-partner, YouTuber Nick Green, Queef Jerky. Controversial and polarizing, to say the least. Hit and miss for people. You’re either a double dipper or not. Get jiggy with its off-kiltered, no-filter sound and songwriting that fuses elements of hyperpop, rage rap, and experimental. Confusing and jarring, all while fascinating and melodically interesting. Take the musical relatives of your fave experimental Pitchfork darlings and watch them TP the Pitchfork building. Queef Jerky. Not everyone’s cup of orange juice, but Dev is grateful for that side project for her growth as an artist. “Like it or not, doing Queef Jerky really helped me kind of open my mind to how I can make a song in a different way. Where I feel like I may be, I wouldn’t have grown in the way I have, at least at this point in my life, if I didn’t have that outlet where it’s like I truly don’t have to give a shit.” Continuing, she expressed to me, “Like, it’s purely fun. It’s like I’m not thinking about what I’m saying at all; I’m not thinking about what it sounds like at all. We’re just like messing around, and I feel like it gave me so much confidence in, like, my ability as a musician to, like, now with this new album.”

Surface Tension is the big day out into the real world of art, so to speak. After singles, EPs, loosies, and one-offs, this sound and that sound, Dev basked in the LA crave energy and created an 8-track project as long as a Seinfeld episode (minus commercials) but packs a punch in a short amount of time. Locked in with frequent collaborator, producer, and homie, Jondren (with collaborations going back to Lemontopia… possibly further, and my research might just be shit), the one-on-one dynamic is the comfortable space that helps Dev think straight to create zigzags. “I enjoy working with just me and one person. I enjoy me and the producer, and that’s it.” Elaborating, she says, “I really like just sitting with my thoughts, and when I’m writing a song in the session and having freedom to think, if I need feedback and input, I can just ask the producer, ‘Oh, what do you think of this?’ I think collaboration is an important, beautiful thing. It’s such a beautiful experience to make a body of work with someone; it’s so cool.”

The end result this time is a solid debut album that adds another element to her artistry and character. From the opening track and first single, “Nice Try,” that sets the tone of the amount of movement and yet intent listening you’ll proceed to do throughout the album, to the epic “Nothing Changes” that feels like it’s destined to become a bedroom anthem for many fans to sing along to and perform with themselves and belt every word as if they wrote it. For the feels, yo. Plus everything in between, Surface Tension is an experimental pop album that checks off many boxes: moments to mosh, moments to breathe, and moments to savor.

Faced by a Prosthetic Lady, (I call her Prosdevic Lady) among other surrealist offf shoot imagery, laced with lyrics that are personal and vulnerable, it feels like another strong case of how irony gets thrown out the window (rag doll style). Surface Tension is what feels like the artistic path she’s been paving for a few years now. All in a day’s work as an artist. In times when you can easily say “Fuck it” and just release pages of your own journal and slap on mascara tear face for a selfie, and call it noon. “I’m just like so much more free and how I express myself and like the way I come up with vocal melodies and stuff is it’s just so like it’s like I don’t know do in order to like open my mind so like oh music doesn’t have to sound like this way I could be this other way.” Figuring yourself out and the situation through the arts is what keeps the world going round. Thankfully, she did, and now her name is buzzing and not in the buzzards.

Treating the music and visuals like they’re the left brain and right brain. Two halves of different lives, like Hallie Parker and Annie James. This album feels like an elevated achievement for her catalog. Speaking on the album, she elaborated on its visuals and themes lyrically and expressed how it revolved around “emotional denial.” Explaining “I think overall, my baseline is that I am happy, but then like I fall into these deep dark spirals. But I am like happy, but it’s like you can’t be both at the same time. Then it’ll get confusing cause I’ll convince myself that I am happy, but then I’ll just fall into these dark spirals.” However, the meaning of everything slowly became clear through the process versus a targeted concept. Take the Prosthetic Lady, for instance; the visuals were just as simple, “This is what this song sounds like,” as Dev puts it. “I feel like I’m the type of person who doesn’t really think that hard and deep about things when I do them. I just do them and realize what they mean later on.”

Dev is riding high on creativity and closer and closer to her name being heard by the world. And I may not have the strongest third eye vision, but it seems like she’s on the right trajectory (if Danny Brown likes you, then you’re def on the right path). In the midst, I had a chance to chat with Dev somewhere in May, as she was taking the baby steps into her press run for the album. We got to talk about her then-upcoming album, Death Grips, iPods, and other shit that might or might not make the interview. THAT’S AN AWFULLY HAWT COFFEE POT!

Did you know if you were an artist in the 2000s, your name would be Miss iPod?

Never thought of it like that… Wait a minute…hmmm…I should’ve thought of that. <laughs>

Which Death Grips song would you play at your wedding?

Ooh, that’s a good question! Well, my favorite is “Bubbles Buried in This Jungle,” so that’s my impulse, but at my wedding, maybe “Up My Sleeves.”

What affects you more: creative burnout or imposter syndrome?

Oh damn, I think it depends on where I’m at in life. Because right now, I think in this instance, I don’t know, maybe imposter syndrome actually. Because I’ll say that I feel like with burnout, I’m the type of person where I constantly work, and I don’t stop, and I have so many different creative outlets that when I feel burnt out with one thing, I can just jump to everything. And like, if I feel inspired enough to do a different medium and feel burnt out by that, I can just go back to the other thing. I don’t know; I think I’m constantly experimenting with things, so burnout happens to me when I’m feeling uninspired and start to question my own abilities, so I feel like imposter syndrome will cause the burnout to begin with and spiral into that. Yeah, I feel imposter syndrome is something I struggle with more than burnout because I, like, I don’t know, don’t we all?

Do you feel like you accomplished the goal of breaking down the barriers of gatekeeping for music theory with SongPsych with a past few years now?

I would hope so! I definitely think so at the time, absolutely. I think a lot of people… The appeal of it was made so accessible, and in general, music theory is such a pretentious sort of thing. We’re using all these big words; the base concepts are using these words, and it’s like, ‘What’s that?’ Just talk about it like a person, and I think some people are like mad at that, especially because I’m a woman. I think people wanted me to be wrong so badly. People go to fucking school for 4 years and spend all this money to learn all this shit, I’m teaching myself on YouTube and dumb it down to where like a 5-year-old could understand. So I think I did.

Do you think Eminem lyrics should be studied in college courses?

<Laughs> You know, sometimes. Yeah, like “You heard of Kris Kristofferson? (Yeah) Well, I am piss piss off’ed-eson” .

How do you feel about the virality of your Eminem freestyle and it being annotated by people?

Dude, I can’t believe how much of, like a thing it became. I didn’t think anything of it when I made it. Grant from Hivemind was like, “Yo, you want to do an impression for this video?” and I was like, “Yeah, it HAS to be Eminem,” and he was like, “Okay, we’ll see if we can do that.” Because also at the time, I just had listened to so much Eminem and taken so many notes on it for something that never came out for this podcast where I had a debate with Eminem’s number one fan in the world, and I got on the podcast, and I didn’t have the heart to be like, “No, he sucks,” so I just listened to her <laughs> and was like, “Well, that’s good you like him.” Like, I couldn’t be mean and hurt her feelings. So, everyone was really fresh on my mind, and so I was like, “Let me do an Eminem impression,” and I did it, and I guess people… resonated with it.

Describe your songwriting in three words?

Turn. Brain. Off. I feel like as time has gone on, I feel like I try to master it completely. It’s happening to my subconscious when I’m writing music because the second I start to think of what I’m saying, like if I just write what I’m feeling and not worry about if there’s a better way I can say it, then I’ll end up writing something I’m really proud of and then figure out what it means later. So I really just try to turn my brain off when I’m writing my music and focus on the feeling of the words blowing up from my subconscious.

Do you feel you’ve become the artist you’ve always wanted to be?

Yes, definitely! I feel lately more than ever I feel that way because I feel like I am really centering myself back into really paying attention to what I value in life, and I think something I really value is creativity, innovation, and feeling fulfilled with what I’m making and truly liking it as a form of expression that not only I’m proud of but I’m excited to go back and look back on in the future. I feel like I’m really proud of what I’m doing right now, and I’m really proud of the music I’m making. I’m proud of the weird horror YouTube videos I’m making. I feel it’s really easy to be in the content game and get lost and lose sight of your values and prioritize money, views, numbers, and ego and stuff. Especially when it’s your career, you kind of have to prioritize money to an extent, but I feel you can get lost in it pretty quickly and not really notice it happening until you’ve been in it for so long. So I really feel proud of where I’m at right now, where I’m, like, really making a point to make content and music that I’m really passionate about, regardless of how it performs.

The album that’s coming out this year, these songs I feel so proud of. They just make me so excited to continue to grow, cause I feel like I can constantly grow. I feel like I’m at a spot where I feel like I can constantly grow and constantly do better and top what I did before, but not in a self-destructive and self-critical, unhealthy way. It’s more of, I’m really excited to keep doing better, you know what I mean?

What’s the world trying to build with your album?

I feel what I’m trying to build… I feel like what a lot of the album is about is just tension with yourself and trying to convince yourself that you’re happy with what you’re doing, but sometimes you believe it. A lot of it is based off the past year of my life and just grieving a relationship that was painful and stuff. Just letting go of a lot of things and just tension.

Why did it take this long to release a full-length album?

Really good question honestly it’s something that like…. my thinking this whole time has been really backwards and I’ve only like for the longest time thought of making music like a singles and I just waited for one single to just like explode and then like make the album because it’s like oh my debut album you can only do that once but it’s just like shut up like I don’t know I feel like I have really stunted my growth like as an artist and as a like with my career by like waiting for them thinking of it that way because I think like it’s just like who cares like just make an album and move on like that’s the only way you’re going to grow and I feel like it’s just taking me so long because I’ve been thinking just like I was just been thinking of like making music in a way in just a different way for a long time and I think that’s like going back to Queef Jerky I guess, like, just having an outlet where it’s like, “All right, well, we made five albums,” or like, “four albums in the span of, like, a year and a half.” Like, what, who cares? Like, it is not that serious. Just like, make an album and, like, move on to the next one. So I think doing that really opened my mind to, like, what am I waiting for? Like, why? Like, I should just make an album because I want to make an album, and I do, so I did.

Future Plans?

I’m dropping another single in June. I’m because of August 1st. August 1st is my debut.

Listen to Surface Tension and Dev Musics wherever you like to. Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify, you know the places. Follow Dev Lemons on Instagram, TikTok, and the usual places. Remember: Chicken Noodle Popsicles can be apart of balanced breakfast.