Sisterly sonics and LA living with Devers: “It’s almost like we share the same brain”
Family dynamics can be hard to grapple with at the best of times, let alone when you try to make it work in a musical capacity. Some truly hit all the notes, look at Haim, for example, with four massive records under their belts, while others, like Oasis, can threaten to go up in flames from the closeness. Even though they “only fight sometimes”, those sibling sonics are a challenge that Kaitlyn and Mady Dever, known professionally as Devers, are prepared to tackle head-on.
But in many ways, what ironically sets the sister duo apart in comparison to other family acts is the fact that they are both unapologetically individual. Between different career arcs, songwriting processes, and sonic outlooks, the pair are not afraid to stand on their own two feet where it’s needed, yet equally, also know when to bring the harmonious moments of their lives into song.
That’s an element which is, coincidentally but fittingly, reflected in the state of our conversation over Zoom. Mady is at home in California, while Kaitlyn is coming live from the early hours of the morning in Australia. But while they may be physically half a world apart, the sisters are resoundingly in sync with their own thoughts and feelings on their current EP, I Think We’re Lost—released on June 4th—as well as each other’s.
“I think it was when our parents got us both musical instruments that we decided even just to start playing music on our own. Then we started to sing together a few years following that,” Kaitlyn says, explaining their origins. “But it wasn’t for a long time until we actually started feeling comfortable enough to write music or bring it to each other and start to collaborate in that way. It took us a long time to get to that stage of the two of us playing together in that capacity.”
Indeed, Devers, as the eventual musical product they are marketing today, is not the first sonic foray for the sisters, who previously went under the moniker Beulahbelle before settling for their surname. But this notion of keeping things firmly tied to their family is evidently important to both Kaitlyn and Mady, who wax lyrical on the significance of their sisterly bond and how this plays the most integral role in forming the sound of their music, even if they do concede that there is the occasional fight along the way.
“Obviously, yes, we do bicker on occasion, we are a family, we are sisters, that is bound to happen, but actually, because we are sisters, it does help us in so many ways. With our harmonies, for example, being sisters is so helpful in that we share the same brain almost, and that we’re able to collaborate really well together because we have a deeper level of understanding with each other, that we wouldn’t necessarily have if we were friends that had started a band,” they muse.
“That has been really special,” Kaitlyn chimes in. “And we just have so much history together. I think history with someone creates a really great foundation for creativity, and I think that that’s how it’s really helped us.” Without sounding obnoxious, I ask if they have heard Haim’s latest album, I Quit, yet, as I can’t shake the feeling that much of what they are saying about harmonics would resonate with many other sibling acts. “I’m excited to hear the rest of it, yeah—Alana [Haim]’s a good friend of mine,” Kaitlyn responds.
These friends in high places come as no real surprise after a massive year so far starring in shows like The Last of Us and Apple Cider Vinegar; it seems everything the elder Dever sister touches right now is instantly destined to become a hit. She’s shooting for another job as we speak, hence her being stationed ‘Down Under’. But creating music and performing with Mady is always a special outlet, she says, providing a fresh dynamic to the acting world.
“In my downtime, I can either sit in my house and binge Gilmore Girls or pick up a guitar,” she laughs. “It’s always a way for me to step away from work, and I think that’s also helpful for my acting job to be able to take a break from it in a healthy way—take a break from whatever character I’m playing and tap into some of my own personal emotions as Kaitlyn rather than the emotions of another character.”
It’s these distinctly personal qualities between the sisters that really stand out as we continue to speak. They’ve produced a six-track EP, including standout tunes like ‘It’s Not Funny’ and ‘Where Do I Go’ that are simultaneously cohesive but equally individualised, encompassing a range of pop, indie, and lo-fi sounds. Indeed, what they say about their genetic intuition for harmonising does a lot of explaining, because it transpires that they didn’t actually go through the writing process side by side.
Mady expands on that, saying, “Actually, it’s really a cool experience”. And with regards to her and her sister’s process of writing songs separately, she says, “The fact that we know each other so well, it’s almost like there are times when we don’t even need to ask what this song is about. I think it’s pretty rare that we sit down and write a song together, which kind of lends to them being slightly more personal,” adding, “because they are very individualised to what we are going through. Sometimes we’ll write a song about the same situation we both went through from like different perspectives.”
“Even though it’s something we both went through,” Mady continues, “it’s a completely different perspective or a completely different viewpoint on how we perceived the situation and how we decided it would sound coming out in a creative fashion.” That sense reveals itself most expressly in tunes like the aforementioned ‘Where Do I Go’, which combines an aching heart of lyrical melancholy with a racing, exhilarating build of indie sonics.
“This was one that Kaitlyn brought to me and we worked on the lyrics and building it together,” Mady notes. “To me, it always felt like a wandering sort of feeling, and that’s where we came up with the idea for the EP itself. Yeah, it really had this quality of feeling lost, but then it’s juxtaposed against the upper beats of the song, and so it’s almost like you’re lost, but you’re OK with it and you’re just vibing.”
Subsequently, all the open roads lead to Los Angeles, the sisters’ base, as well as the spiritual home for the I Think We’re Lost EP. “There was something really nice when we were creating the EP that we weren’t far away from our house,” they explain. “We remember we would go and play the rough MP3s with our family at home over dinner, and that was a really fun thing. We were also living together at the time of writing it, and so living in the same place, we worked on so much of it here at our house, and that inspired it a lot.”
With a rushing dichotomy of glitz and glamour against vast and often breathtaking beach landscapes, there is an environmental juxtaposition that plays out, which Kaitlyn is considering with a newfound intrigue. “There are hidden names of places that we mention, or in another song there’s a name of a street in LA—oh, and in ‘Where Do I Go’, we mention sunset, [but] when I say sunset I’m talking about Sunset Boulevard as well as the sunsets in LA, so there’s a lot of that in our music, for sure.”
As such, the future path for Devers is bright, if still a little uncertain. They seem more than happy to tackle their next musical venture from here when it comes, not least as Kaitlyn traverses film sets all over the world, but because they also hold their own sense of steadfast individuality. It strikes me that they probably don’t want to be tied down to any concrete plans anytime soon. It is partly ironic, however, that the closing statement from their current EP asks the question, “Where do we go from here?”, because the real answer is that Kaitlyn and Mady Dever are not completely certain themselves, but they’ll be in motion one way or another.
