Members of THE DEV use their self-expression and collaborative talents to create a new brand of hard rock – a kind that doesn’t conform to the norm, adding a bit of edge to the well-known styles of rock n’ roll. A compelling combination of charisma and fury makes THE DEV a force to be reckoned with. Check out our interview with the voice of THE DEV, Nikollaj Lleshi!

Beginnings:

Some of the band members knew each other before others. But it was a combination of craigslist ads, word of mouth, and trial and error. One thing we can all agree on is that timing happened perfectly and we couldn’t be happier with the family we became.

Behind the name:

Making the name for the band wasn’t easy. It took us months to figure out until our bassist, John was joking around and said THE DEV, it had no meaning at the moment, but for some reason, I thought it had a ring to it, and you can count on our guitarist, Ryan to get all deep with meaning and he came up with Desired Evolutionary Vision which really stuck with us because we’re always trying new things, changing our mind…etc. But the vision and the desire to do music in this band is what keeps us together and going. So I guess you can say the rest was history.

Inspiration:

Each other and our stories. We all have such different tastes when it comes to music and hobbies, so we’re always learning from each other. We also write our own parts so there’s constant emotion flowing through our music. It’s almost like storytelling for us. 

I guess you can say life situations inspire us the most.

I guess you can say life situations inspire us the most. But also style, the music we listen to…etc. come into play. Currently, we aren’t really working on a full album but lots of singles. We’re having fun creating a full story for you guys. From writing the song mixing and mastering it. Doing inspired shoots and then, of course, the music video to tie everything all together. It creates a full story for our fans and listeners to digest. 

Teamwork:

We always work together on our songs, as a band you have to. But the writing processes can vary with us. Normally, it starts off with someone coming up with a lick or beat. From there, everyone jumps on with their idea for their instrument to play. Normally, vocals and harmonies come in last, but then we do slight adjustments to make sure everything blends well or nothing is needed.

COVID-19:

It really hurt us, to say the least when we couldn’t do live shows, it’s what we enjoy the most. But we did what we could and did a lot of live stream concerts with local radios, kept in contact with our fans through social media, created and released dope merch, and even did some prize contests just to keep everything positive and moving. Not to mention that the music writing process never stopped.