Music: What's on InSoc's mind?

One is a professor of soil science. Another creates music for video games. The third makes music for TV, film and commercials.

Twenty years later, the three members of Information Society are still pretty geeky. That's no surprise because InSoc -- as fans call them -- was the Twin Cities' geekiest band, a synthesizer group in quirky costumes who fashioned dance hits that crossed over to the pop charts. In fact, InSoc had the biggest national hit -- "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)" -- of any Twin Cities group in 1988, a year when Prince was still a major radio force and electronica wasn't even a genre yet.

"We didn't fit in and we still don't," said Paul Robb, 46, whose group will reunite Saturday for its first Twin Cities performance since 1993.

"It's amazing to me how many kids come up and gush about how influential we are or were in some areas of music, especially kids into drum 'n' bass and industrial music. For other people, we're just an '80s throwback; we're in that same category as groups like Berlin and Flock of Seagulls."

In Twin Cities terms, InSoc was a hybrid of Lipps Inc. and the Suburbs -- synthesizer-playing studio denizens who took to the stage with punky attitudes, quirky costumes and oddball hairdos. The trio couldn't find a following in local clubs, so they moved to New York in 1986. With the success of their 1988 self-titled Warner Bros. debut, InSoc ended up on an MTV tour with Paula Abdul, Milli Vanilli and Tone Loc.

Moved to West Coast

The group disbanded in 1993 and the three principals -- Jim Cassidy, Kurt Larson (he of the Flock of Seagulls-like hair) and Robb -- eventually moved to the West Coast.

Cassidy is now a professor of soil science at Oregon State University. Larson is an audio director at a video-game company near San Francisco. And Robb formed a trip-hop duo, Brother Sun Sister Moon, with Barbara Cohen, his old classmate from Irondale High in New Brighton. The Los Angeles-based duo signed with Virgin Records in 1997, but got dropped and released an album five years later under the moniker Luminous.

To pay the bills, Robb, who is divorced with two children, has done music for MTV, "South Park" and many car jingles.

"I have found that 30 seconds is the perfect length for my compositional personality," Robb said recently from his L.A. studio. "I'm a child of the television era and I was probably trained from birth to feel in my soul what TV commercials should be like."

Last year, InSoc released a two-disc 25th-anniversary compilation, "Apocryphon: Electro Roots 1982-85," of recordings from the group's indie days in the Twin Cities as well as a live CD. A few of those tunes, as well as new material and the hits "Running" and "Walking Away," will be part of the show on Saturday at the Varsity Theater.

The trio began performing occasionally in 2007. "We still have the same multiple personalities as we always did in that we are a different group depending on who you talk to," Robb said. "Now we're totally in it for the fun of it. That lack of pressure and expectation from a major label has really made us much more relaxed, and I think the performances are more fun for that very reason."

They've been getting offers from overseas, too. "We're discussing a two-week run in South America," Robb said. "But now that we're all old and have kids and lives and jobs, it's hard to take two weeks off. We don't really tour, per se. We just pick the one-off gig here and there that sounds fun for us."

The performances have arty light shows and distinctive costumes ranging from fedoras and trenchcoats to lab coats and masks to T-shirts with slogans. When they get into the T-shirts, it's easy to spot Cassidy: He's the guy with "SOIL" in big block letters.

Jon Bream • 612-673-1719