Graphic by Lily Johnson
Devon Vonder Schmalz, also known as Dev Lemons, is a TikTok sensation and up-and-coming recording artist. She is known for her pop beats infused with heartfelt lyrics about love, loneliness, socioeconomic status and individuality. I had the pleasure of chatting with Dev Lemons via Zoom about her music journey thus far … the coolest thing I learned about her music? It’s all DIY.
Step 1: Find Your Passion
A lot of us have experienced a bit of a regression into our past selves after spending the pandemic in our childhood bedrooms. For Dev, this regression meant returning to seriously creating music after pursuing a degree and career in film and acting. She dabbled in music-making prior to pursuing her degree at Emerson (she actually finished her degree in film the same day that we talked to one another, woot woot!), but gave up this passion for a while after her high school friends found her songs and started making fun of her. Luckily, when she got to college, she was surrounded by other artists who created freely and encouraged her to pick up the synth and give it another go. In 2019, she started mitigating time between her school work and her music by releasing under the name Miss iPad (she has a really cool cover of Gillian March’s “You Don’t Care About People” that I highly recommend). Dev’s music as Miss iPad was a way for her to cope with different obstacles in her life, but she wasn’t very satisfied with how it came out which encouraged her to keep pushing.
Once quarantine hit, Dev decided to use her newfound free time to teach herself music theory. She used her knowledge to secure a partnership with TikTok’s educational program, developing the account SongPsych that shares bite-sized videos about music theory. SongPsych has 815.6k followers and continues to grow as Dev charms audiences with videos like, “What Makes Castaways a Freaking Banger?” (spoiler alert: It’s the congas). Dev was able to use her new following and understanding of music theory to create momentum for her next music project.
Step 2: Develop Your Identity
Around the same time that SongPsych started to help Dev gain momentum for her music career, she realized that going by Miss iPad was kind of a legal nightmare. She took to TikTok and issued a challenge to her followers to find her a new name. Eventually, she settled on Dev Lemons. The “Dev” part of Dev Lemons stems from a follower’s suggestion that she go by the name Miss Dev, and the “Lemons” stems from Dev’s belief that “Lemons are never good by themselves. They kind of suck, but like when you combine them with other things to make lemon pastries, or lemonade, they’re so good.” As Miss iPad, Dev did all of the mixing and producing by herself (“I wish I had been more confident to ask other people, because I know a lot of really talented people but I just didn’t have the confidence to do that.”). But as Dev Lemons, Dev’s friends help her out by adding on to her sound (hence the lemons to lemonade!) which “just makes everything so much better.”
With her new name and her friends in tow, Dev started up the Dev Lemons YouTube channel on July 27, 2020. Dev “likes to make music but doesn’t take herself too seriously,” which is probably in reference to her somewhat zany online persona. She recently posted a video to the channel (where her bio states, “Hi I’m Dev Lemons AKA Miss iPad AKA Dev Lem AKA D Lemmy AKA Lord Lemquad AKA Lil Shawty AKA Big Shawty AKA Cool Hat Devon AKA The Coolest Hat You’ve Ever Seen AKA yeah i know right i wish i had a hat that cool AKA yeah seriously and it’s reversible what more can a lemon ask for AKA Devon. welcome to my channel”) called “Sacks of meat.” In the 14-second video, she makes fun of people who get angry about music because, in her words, “We’re all sacks of meat that listen to the air wiggle through our little meat folds.” Her authenticity on platforms like YouTube and TikTok is an homage to the fact that she is very real about herself and her art. Dev doesn’t spend any money on marketing because she uses her internet presence to do the marketing for her, which is why it’s so important that she continues to be herself online (as odd as that person may be).
Step 3: Develop Your Voice
On SongPsych, Dev does a segment where she breaks down different music genres. She describes her own music as “Weird pop.” “Honestly I think my music is pop, but I don’t think it’s poppy-pop. It’s not experimental enough to be considered experimental, so it’s just weird. Weird pop.” Her music combines her dreamy vocals with pop beats, so it makes sense that applying a firm label to her music would be a bit difficult.
In part, Dev’s subversion of a music genre may be because she is a self trained lyricist. Her independence doesn’t take away from the quality of her music —, if anything, it just makes it cooler. We talked a lot about her song “You Don’t Do Laundry” off her EP “Lemontopia.” Lyrics like, “You don’t ask questions, don’t negotiate / Got so much money you could throw away / But you constantly come off like you haven’t worked a single day,” are inspired by Dev’s own frustration with the elitist culture of the music industry and society itself. “I’ve always been surrounded by all of these rich kids, but I’m not rich. It’s weird being surrounded by all of this wealth which has put that at the front of my mind.”
Step 4: Collaborate With Your Friends
Because Dev doesn’t have a lot of money to funnel into her projects, she tries to keep them as low- cost as possible (she tries to produce each song at a maximum of $100). “I’m really just trying to do everything for free until I can’t, and then I give up and move on to the next song because I just don’t have that money to spend.” Her solution to this problem? Enlist her friends.
The process goes something like this: Dev writes a song and then her producer friend Stevie Powers sends her a loop to put the vocals over. Next, she’ll send the song to engineers who give the music a bit more structure. “It’s a really small team. It’s mainly me, Stevie and then like three other people.” Dev’s collaborations symbolize a renaissance of her work as an artist because of the increase in the quality of her music, as well as the growth of confidence in her own music to share it with the people in her life and ask for help.
Step 5: Release and Repeat
With the help of her team, Dev has released four singles and one EP. Her new EP, “Lemontopia,” was released on April 16 and is a short and sweet listen that really represents Dev’s talent. The release includes four songs (with collaborations with Stevie Powers and Kaiyu) and is nine minutes long (my favorite song on the EP is definitely “Outlets”). Whatever comes after the EP is a little uncertain. As government regulations allow for live performances to restart, Dev has had to question whether or not that will be in the cards for the future of her career. After all, live performance is expensive, which is not conducive with Dev’s low- cost methodology. And then there’s the fact that she’s never actually performed live before, save for a few open mics: “I have never had a vocal coach, so they went really badly.” At one point, she tried to join a few of the different acapella groups on her campus, but she was rejected from them all.
Despite the uncertainty, Dev didn’t seem too worried about what the future holds for her career. She hinted at a mystery concept album that should be coming up sometime in the future. “I’ve never been more sure of myself with a project.” I had such a great time chatting with Dev and I am definitely going to be monitoring her socials for any indication of what the album is going to look like. For right now, you can soundtrack whatever your next DIY project is with “Lemontopia,” which is out on all platforms!!