Its members hail from all over: Vermont, Seattle, New York, Toronto and England. Musically, they come from backgrounds ranging from classical to school band to punk rock. Their nonmusical lives are even more varied: The keyboardist is preparing is doctoral thesis on climatology, the bassist is working on his Ph.D. in oceanography, the drummer is a teacher and the lead singer is a project manager.
So the odds against the five members of San Diego's Guava Belly (playing with Endoxi on Feb. 27 at Winston's in Ocean Beach) coming together to form a band were pretty high (although the oceanographer and climatologist could probably calculate them to the nth decimal place).
But once they met, the members said they all kind of knew it was a group that could work well together.
"We basically try to keep it as nonstressful as possible," lead singer Dan Hammer said during a recent conference call with the band, which is releasing its debut CD at the Feb. 27 show. "Everybody gets a say, everybody gets to do what they want."
Aaron Giffin, the drummer, said Guava Belly was formed when he, Hammer and guitarist Mike Villemaire left their previous band in August 2007 and were looking for a few more musicians to help fill out their next project.
"Pretty much the day after that band stopped playing together, we met with Mike Pritchard and James Traer and started playing right away."
With Pritchard on keyboards and Traer on bass, the band's lineup was complete.
Hammer said the band's eclectic music -- the CD features strains of everything from 1960s and '70s psychedelic through classic rock, 1980s and '90s alternative to reggae, funk and jazz -- was a natural outgrowth of the above influences everyone brought to the group.
"A big part of the creation of our sound is all of us come from learning different genres of music," Giffen said. "Some of us listened to punk, some of us were classically trained, our jazz piano player loves funk; we throw in country, we have hip-hop in our music.
"I think the blend of genres we push together creates the Guava Belly sound."
And yet, it came about organically, Hammer said, rather than through any deliberate planning.
"We didn't think about" the band's sound, he said. "We let what was coming naturally run the show."
That democratic approach led to Guava Belly's stability, as well as its growing success on the local scene, Hammer said.
"The reason the last group didn't work out is it felt very driven by one person -- which wasn't one of us -- and music is an expression and a release, and we wanted to have fun with it."
When asked whether the success of San Diego bands such as Dirty Sweet and Transfer, two bands that also cross stylistic boundaries on a regular basis, made it easier to build a following for their wide-open approach to music, Guava Belly's members said those two bands have helped to create an audience for their kind of music.
"We're definitely aware of those bands, and we like them," Villemaire said. "We're at a point that we've just finished this CD that we're proud of, and we're hoping we'll spread out and get some of the same success as those bands."
Still, the growing size and depth of the music scene in San Diego County (the North County Times tracks more than 600 active local bands via myspace.com/northcountytimes) have led to a situation where a band just starting out has to take some less-than-attractive gigs serving as background music.
While the band's members said those gigs were played to generate money to pay for the recording and production of the CD, Hammer also said they serve as a way to get immediate feedback on new songs or arrangements.
"They can be a good judge of songs; just jam, and then you see people turn and pay attention and that's cool.
"It's a good live rehearsal."
Guava Belly, with Endoxi
When: 9:30 p.m. Feb. 27
Where: Winston's Beach Club, 1921 Bacon St., Ocean Beach
Admission: $10
Info: (619) 222-6822 or winstonsob.com
Web: guavabelly.com
