Lending from the success of its first single, “Beautiful Struggle,” The Borrowers’ fan base seems to be growing every day, and with the kind of fans lead singer Mark Addison and upright bassist Josef Zimmerman love — college students.

“[College students] are really excited about the music part of the show,” Zimmerman said. “They have open minds about it, they’re real hungry for something new.”

“And they drink a lot of beer,” Addison added. “[They are] not as into categories and more into learning about different things.”

Different definitely goes hand in hand with The Borrowers, who combine elements of rock, folk, alternative, classical and various ethnic styles into a sound described by violinist Joshua Segal as “power folk.”

Zimmerman felt better with his own definition. “Super-charged acoustic rock,” he explained. “Josh plays four or five instruments on each song, which is an interesting thing to see live.”

Addison also credits Segal’s ability to play violin, mandolin, bass clarinet and saxophone, among other odds and ends things, as one of the reasons the band stands apart from others.

“We just kept asking him, can you play mandolin? Can you play guitar? And so we’d go out and buy a mandolin,” Addison said.

Another rather unusual element of the band is its drummer, Nina Singh, whom Zimmerman describes as “the best female drummer in the world.”

Singh had been playing on and off for 12 years before finally finding a home with The Borrowers. “I love it,” she said. “They’re really great guys.”

Segal, who was receiving his first drum lesson from Singh at the time of the interview, had a different story. “We put up with her,” he joked.

The Borrowers are even different when it comes to how they got together as a band. Zimmerman and Addison met in the street one day, after Zimmerman rear-ended his future bandmate.

“He got out to talk to me and saw my bass in the back seat,” Zimmerman said. “He told me he was looking for an upright bassist so we started talking. Now I just need to make enough money to pay his deductible for him.”

According to Zimmerman, Segal was playing saxophone in Denmark at the time and took some persuading to come back to play with the duo. Singh joined soon after.

In a short time, The Borrowers signed with Guardian records and began preparing to record its first disc. After some debate, the band decided on a producer with a lot of experience in heavy guitar effects to do the record.

“The band played everything on the record,” Zimmerman said. “We set out to try a lot of different sounds. [We played] a violin through a talk-box, acoustic guitars with distortion, the acoustic bass with a bow.”

“We put out the record to represent us,” Addison added. “It was our statement, an artistic project, of what we were going to be.”

The Borrowers faced its biggest challenge when it came time to put out a single. Taking a piece out of the puzzle was too hard for the band, so it let the industry take on the job.

Labelmate and ex-Kinks singer Ray Davies played a part in the decision when he told Guardian president Steve Murphy, after listening to the band’s early demo, that “Beautiful Struggle” would sell a million records.

Davies’ prediction has yet to become reality, but the song seems to be heading in the right path. Meanwhile, the band will continue on a two-week tour with The Why Store.

“Both bands are really compatible to each other,” Addison said. “[The tour] is really good for both of us. Their fans have been really supportive and for them it’s nice to have someone they dig opening for them.”

The bands play at People’s Bar and Grill on Saturday at 9 p.m.