Just why is Molly Jenson living in Fullerton these days?

After all, the San Diego native (playing Saturday at Lestat's in San Diego) grew up in Rancho Bernardo, attended Point Loma Nazarene University, played her first shows in Pacific Beach and at Lestat's in San Diego, and is friends with and has toured or recorded with local musical luminaries Greg Laswell, Jon Foreman and Sean Watkins.

So why Fullerton?

"One of the reasons I left was because I felt like a lot of people get stuck in San Diego, and I think a lot of that is by choice," she said by phone last week. "A lot of the acoustic musicians like to play coffee shops and want to spend the rest of their lives playing coffee shops. That's not what I want to do.

"I felt like if I stayed in San Diego, I could fall into that. I grew up in San Diego, and I love it there, but it's too mellow."

Since leaving San Diego, Jenson's self-released debut CD, "Maybe Tomorrow" (produced by Laswell), has been picked up by Nettwerk Records, with a duet with Switchfoot's Jon Foreman added. She hopes to tour in support of the CD -- not just to get the word out, but because she genuinely likes going on tour.

"I've toured with another band for a year, and we did 300 shows in a year and I loved it. I just love traveling, and being in different towns, and playing a different place every time.

"Now that I'm doing my own stuff, I just really want to go everywhere -- I want to play it everywhere. I'm trying to find a booking agent right now. That's been the hardest thing for me, finding a booking agent."

Jenson said she recently completed a five-day West Coast swing opening for Fiction Family, the current project of Foreman and Watkins, and it reminded her how much she loves touring.

"It was part Nickel Creek fans and part Switchfoot fans," Jenson said of the tour. "I played every night to 300 to 600 people, and I had a built-in crowd. There were some people there for me, but mostly it was new people."

But Jenson said the chance to play to new fans is more opportunity than challenge.

"I sold 20 to 30 CDs a night; I kept having to get CDs overnighted."

The record deal came about after Jenson had sold some 3,000 copies of the album on her own after issuing it three years ago.

"I signed with a label back in April; they heard the CD and liked it and said, 'We just want this. We don't want you to record a new one.'

"There's no way I could have distributed it the way it's been distributed. It's good for me that this record gets more of a life, and I feel it definitely has more life in it."

The record began life roughly five years ago when Laswell approached Jenson about working together.

"We went to Point Loma (Nazarene) together and knew each other. He called me out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to write together."

While writing and recording what they wrote, Jenson said she realized she was creating an album without thinking about it.

"Four songs in, I realized I had half an album."

And if the label wanted to distribute what she and Laswell had already created, another album is already in the works.

"It makes me really excited to work on the next record. I actually started working on that with Greg just before I got signed. We have a couple of songs done. I'm not ready to start working on it yet because I want to focus on getting on tour, but definitely within the next six months, and hopefully we'll have that done by the end of the year, early next year."

Molly Jenson, opening for Get Back Loretta

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Lestat's, 3343 Adams Ave, San Diego

Admission: Call for cover

Info: (619) 282-0437 or lestats.com

Web: mollyjenson.com