Lauren DeRose has found her niche here in San Diego – surprising, since the Berklee College of Music student moved to California less than a year ago. But, as the New York-born singer/songwriter puts it, some things are meant to be.

DeRose, who performs often at Siren, the bi-monthly, all-girl spoken word event that takes place regularly at David’s Coffeehouse and at Twiggs Tea & Coffee, is playing two shows at this year’s Pride festival with her newly-formed band.

“I’m excited for it,” she said about playing the festival. “We’ll be performing stuff that no one has heard before.”

Though she writes all her own songs, DeRose prefers the excitement and energy of collaboration, and spends most of her creative time these days developing songs musically with her band.

“We basically jam it out,” she said. “I see how they interpret it, and I say, ‘You should do that here’; ‘You should keep that’; ‘You should take this out – it’s too complex’ or ‘You have to simplify this there’ or vice versa.”

Whether playing solo acoustic or collaborating with other musicians, DeRose’s style runs the gamut from simple, bluesy melodies to post-feminist folk-rock, with hints of punk, funk and alt-country thrown in to spice things up.

“Every time I try to say, ‘I’m a rock singer’ or something like that, I come out with something that’s totally not rock, and every time I say, ‘It’s a funky, folky kind of thing,’ I come out with something that’s kind of punky/pop-ish,” she says. “It’s basically a big cocktail.”

This recipe of pop-punk-folk-funk-rock coupled with her acoustic demo, Little Red Jacket, has earned DeRose numerous gigs around town, building an impressive local following.

Among her influences, DeRose lists Jeff Buckley, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Linda Perry and 4 Non Blondes, Bonnie Raitt, the Pixies, The Cranberries, Ani DeFranco and Joni Mitchell.

In talking to her about her creative approach, one gets the impression that DeRose sees herself as both a conduit for and a creator of music.

“I learn more and more about myself every time I write a song, and it’s evolving, which is good,” she said. “As long as I’m moving forward and evolving, I know that it’s OK, no matter what comes out. If a punk song has to come out, when someone labels you a rock singer or a folk singer, then that punk song just has to come out, and you have to run with it – you’ve got to work with what you got.”

Growing up back East, DeRose can’t remember a time when she wasn’t into music.

“I was always, like, playing little plastic guitars when I was three,” she said. “Rockin’ out to Van Halen. I was just always into it, and my father was a singer and guitar player. He had a band and, not that I was always around him, but I ended up being the same thing.”

She played a wide assortment of instruments in high school, including drums, saxophone and guitar, and started writing songs at 15.

Attending the prestigious Berklee College of Music proved to be a wise move, though she was initially forced to compromise on her choice of instrument, majoring in saxophone instead of guitar due to a stipulation requiring two years of private lessons for the principal instrument majored in, which she had for sax and didn’t for guitar. Eventually, she changed her major to voice, which is what she wanted to do anyway.

“If going to Berkeley did anything at all for me, it made me more aware of what sucks and what doesn’t suck,” DeRose laughed. “It makes me think, ‘Hey, if I write this song and I have to perform it in front of a bunch of some of the best musicians in the world, is this going to impress them or are they going to laugh at me?’ And it doesn’t matter what that chord progression is, and it doesn’t matter if that melody goes to the high point or the low point in your range – is it going a strike a chord in them? I write my songs with that in mind. You can’t just quack over the microphone. You’ve really got to put something into this, because everybody else is putting their all in, too. You have to keep up.”

Unlike most people fresh out of college, DeRose found herself on exactly the path she intended, though maybe a little earlier than she expected.

“I had one year of college left,” she said of her move to California. “I would have been a board-certified music therapist; I would have been doing music therapy and having a nine-to-five job… but I just felt like I had to go, now was the time, so I just left.”

Initially, she and 11 other people, many of them fellow band members at the time, planned to move out to California together, but that number dwindled slowly down until it was only DeRose packing her bags and heading west.

The first stop for the budding performer was, logically, the Los Angeles area. The first five months in Redondo Beach, however, proved to be a flop.

“It was the only place that they would give us an apartment,” DeRose said. “It really, really sucked up there. I was really struggling; I was super broke and I wasn’t playing any shows up there because I didn’t have a car and I didn’t have anywhere to go… I was waiting for a sign – where do I go, what do I do from here?”

A trip down to San Diego early this year with a friend to attend Siren helped DeRose decide her next move. After playing a song at the show, she was approached by Siren organizers Abby Schwartz and Taylor, who asked DeRose to be the featured performer at an upcoming Siren.

One thing led to another, and DeRose started picking up gigs around San Diego, eventually relocating here. In the five months since the move, Taylor is now the bass player in their band, which also includes a drummer and another guitarist; and MC Flow and the Pot of Gold, a side band featuring the music and vocal stylings of Schwartz, Taylor and DeRose, has already landed a gig at the Rosary Room downtown.

“I found a whole new life here,” DeRose said. “Everything happens for a reason. I found Abby and Taylor and now we’re building our little empire ourselves.”

Part of expanding that empire involves getting gigs at places like Lestat’s Coffeehouse and the Casbah, and DeRose and band are weighing the pros and cons of recording a full-length album, which takes a lot of money, or making a live CD, which takes less. Later this summer, DeRose plans on playing the open mic circuit in the L.A. area.

“There’s places where that’s how you get a gig – they see you at an open mic night and if they think you’re good, they’ll give you your own spot and your own night with a couple of other bands,” she said. “I hate L.A., but that’s where you need to be sometimes.”

DeRose plays on the Xone stage at the Pride festival on Saturday, July 31, at 5:00 p.m. and on the main stage on Sunday, Aug. 1, at 1:15 p.m. Link to DeRose’s website at www.gaylesbiantimes.com.