It isn’t hard to guess Stefy Rae’s favourite colour. After all, the 20-year-old California-native has put it right out there by titling her band’s debut record “The Orange Album.” And with song titles like “Orange Crush” and “Orange County” on the disc (another, called “Orange Gumdrop,” is waiting in the wings) there seems to be a theme emerging.

“I’m an Orange County girl,” says Rae, flanked by a rainbow of dresses in downtown Toronto’s F/X. “That’s where I’m from. Everyone, where they’re from, they want to represent.”

The album, which hits streets August 29, has been three years in the making. A lot has changed over that time, most notably the group itself. In fact, older fans of Rae’s music know the band by an entirely different name and line-up.

“It was originally called The Lovely,” explains the singer. “Me and this other girl called Mimi, we were in the band together. She was the bass player. She quit on me a week before we were going to do our showcases.”

With industry interest mounting, the sudden departure of her bandmate left Rae searching for new members. After holding auditions, she came up with three guys – Sean Meyer on guitar, John Gaviati on keys and Andreas Brobjer on drums – and changed the band’s name, simply calling the group Stefy. But despite the solo-sounding moniker, and the fact that the three newest members didn’t play on the album, Rae doesn’t feel like the group is put-together or unnatural.

“It’s nothing forced,” she says. “If it’s forced, I’m going to stay far away from it. We go on stage and we’re all feeding off each other while we’re on stage. They’re my missing puzzle pieces – they made Stefy.”

Rae, however, is undeniably the driving force behind the group. With comparisons to everyone from Debbie Harry to David Bowie being thrown at the frontwoman, she is surprisingly humble.

“If they label you, ‘Oh, you’re going to be the next Gwen Stefani,’ it’s like, ‘Dude, I’m not good enough as Gwen Stefani.’ I don’t like that at all,” she laments. “I guess prove it first, and then you can label me. I appreciate it as a compliment, but I don’t think I’m as good, I don’t think I’m there yet.”

Lately, though, she’s been getting lots of practice. Though the release of her album is still about a month away, Rae managed to land two songs on the soundtrack for the new movie “John Tucker Must Die.” After their first single, “Chelsea,” was picked up for the film, 20th Century Fox came back to Rae and asked her to contribute a second song, exclusively written for the movie.

“I went home that night, sat down with my producer [Jimmy Harry], and we wrote a song called ‘Fool for Love,’” she recalls. “We put it in, [Fox] loved it, and they put that in the movie. So we got lucky and got two songs on the soundtrack, which is awesome.”

Like most of Stefy’s songs, both “Fool for Love” and “Chelsea” deal with aspects of Rae’s love life, though some elements are exaggerated or entirely made up for the sake of a good story.

“Some songs are real – like ‘Love you to Death’ is a real song, so it’s close to my heart. It’s about this guy I was dating, and it’s kind of weird because he’s famous in the States and it’s a bit embarrassing,” says Rae, refusing to elaborate. “Others, we’re just playing around. I haven’t had a guy cheat on me with a girl named Chelsea, so that’s one that’s made up. ‘Chelsea’ is more the type of girl; it’s not a girl in particular.”

Rae is similarly difficult to pin down or box in, especially when she’s on stage. With notoriously over-the-top shows, she thrives on the spectacle of performing. And to keep up her energy from show to show, she looks to her various idols for motivation and inspiration.

“It’s like, how does David Bowie do it every night? How does Prince do it every single night?” says Rae. “And Karen O. is just amazing. If everyone else can do it, I think I can do it too. You get to go out there and be whoever you want on stage. You can be a bad little girl, you can be a shy little girl singing your song. Whatever you want, you can be on stage. It’s freedom for me.”






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