This week's next big thing is an 805 singing beauty, Colbie Caillat. Her last name rhymes with "ballet," and it equals dough for Universal Republic Records as her debut disc, "Coco,"' is a big hit after MySpace became HerSpace for a while.

The contemporary-folk singer-songwriter will make her big stage debut at the venerable Ventura Theatre on Monday night before family and friends.

Caillat, 22, came from a musical family — her dad, Ken, produced a couple of Fleetwood Mac albums — and young Colbie ceased her slacker phase earlier than many and started writing songs and posting them on MySpace. Her hit "Bubbly" soon became all the rage in cyberspace and then, all of a sudden, Caillat had 200,000 new friends. And next Universal, correctly sensing that most of the heavy lifting was over, came on board and now, 22 million online clicks and a tour with the GooGoo Dolls later, here she is.

"Coco" was Colbie's nickname when she was young, well, younger, or before it was an album. It made it to the top of the iTunes chart and No. 5 on the Billboard charts.

Colbie grew up with rock stars (like members of Fleetwood Mac) hanging out around the house and currently partners with Mikal Blue, who had played at Zoey's a few times, and Jason Reeves. Caillat called punctually and was cordial during a gentle recent phone grilling.

So how is "Coco" doing? Are you a young, rich rock star yet?

No, I'm not a rich rock star yet, but "Coco" is doing very well.

What have you learned so far in your musical adventure?

I'm learning so much. I'm learning as I go and I'm trying to teach myself. I'm still really nervous up on stage. Every time, I think it's a really big deal and I get so nervous, like I work myself up before every show; then afterward, it's always: "Why do you do that? It's fine; just have fun up there." So I'm still learning to enjoy it.

This will be a preview for your Ventura show — a home game for you?

I live in Ventura County, so that's going to be crazy, like all friends and family — everyone's coming. I have a band — a five-piece band — and I'm having two openers for me.

Tell me your story with the Internet?

Well, I put my songs up there and people started adding my songs to their pages because they liked them. That got my "plays" up into the thousands a day and that got me ranked in the Top Unsigned Artists Chart. So, it's all about putting good music up there that people like and can relate to and if it works, I dunno, you just kinda go from there.

Yeah, but how did they find you out of so many other choices?

They found me through their friends. Their friends had my songs on their pages; then their friends would hear it on their pages, then add it; then their friends would hear it and it just spread.

How did you get started in all this and when did you know that this was something you wanted to do?

Well, I've been singing since I was 11, but my parents told me that if I was to have a career out of this, I needed to learn how to play an instrument and write my own songs. So after years of just slacking off, I took guitar lessons when I was 19; I wrote my first songs. Then once I started writing them and hearing and feeling the response, that's when I knew I wanted to do this.

Who goes to your gigs? Is there a certain identifiable demographic?

My main demographic is 15-to-25-year-old girls, but I've been seeing parents bringing their 5-year-old kids or grandparents coming, so it's all ages but mainly young girls.

What's your Mikal Blue story?

He has been my producer since I was 15. He worked with my dad a long time ago and they stayed in contact and Mikal knew I could sing so he had me sing on some tracks he had written for a clothing line for the runway shows; then every time I'd write a song, I'd bring it to him and we'd put it down in the studio and we just kept going.

Where do songs come from for you?

I write whenever I feel that all my emotions, I've let them build up inside of me, and once they're ready to kind of spill out just to get stuff off my mind. That's when I write and they usually they come out as a full song or I can get a half or a quarter of the way through, then I have to go to Mikal Blue or Jason Reeves for help.

E-mail music writer Bill Locey at blocey@pacbell.net.

This interview was abridged. If you'd like to read all the questions and answers, log on to VenturaCountyStar.com and find this story under Time Out.