Fing

Listen to an in-studio performance and interview with Fing:

This five-man San Diego band boasts a classically trained drummer with orchestral experience and a keyboardist who studied jazz and experimental music in college. But the genre-leaping brand of adventurous rock that Fing creates is as brawny as it is brainy, and the group's 2007 album, “Making Love With Fear,” is an unusually accomplished and diverse debut.

“I remember having an anxiety attack before our first rehearsal,” recalls lead singer Pascal Dickinson. “I thought, 'Why should we limit ourselves to one kind of music, instead of playing all the styles we like?' ”

– GEORGE VARGA