In Fashion Magazine Interview
From InSocPedia
An interview with Paul Robb. Probably not anything that you didn't already know. I wonder if Paul is still planning on running for President?
FACE TO FACE: INFORMATION SOCIETY
By Amy Linden
Misfits From Minneapolis find New York City fans calling Information, please:
For a while it seemed that all a band needed to make it in the music biz was residency in Minneapolis. But Information Society, who recently blipped their way into the Top 20 with 'What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy), quickly realized that their Twin City origins wouldn't suffice- their success awaited them outside the city limits. "We were kind of rejected" chief funkateer Paul Robb explains. "If you're not black. you're not in the Prince scene; and if you don't play guitar. you're not in the garage band."
So Robb and company (Amanda Kramer, Kurt Valaquen and James Cassidy) headed
for the land where outcasts are always welcome- NYC. Soon after their arrival
in 1986. the release of Info's funky single "Running" made the band a sensation
on the Latin hip-hop club circuit.
This year. Info's eponymous debut LP has brought the band an audience that is according to Robb, "younger. less urban and whiter." Being the recipient of teenyboppers screams and in letters is a big Change for the 25-year-old ex-philosophy major, whose love of funk horns (a' la Kool & The Gang), combined with a healthy sense of the absurd (e.g. the sampling of Star Trek dialogue- "It's so dramatic!"), has earned Info a reputation for being lots of fun- a rarity these days. Adding fuel to the band's offbeat image is their wacky sartorial style- somewhere between street chic and capital-F Fashion- which harks back to the glory days of synth-poppers like Duran Duran, a comparison Robb has no problems with.
What next? Well, for someone who dreams of covering James Brown's "Sex Machine" and meeting Jesus, Kate Bush and Kraftwerk ("the ultimate coolest group, Robb declares), a career in politics might not seem like a logical post-pop stardom move, but it's scheduled on Robb's agenda. "I'm planning to run for president in the year 20l2." he insists. "I promise to be economically conservative and socially liberal. Similar," he jokes, "to the band's managers."
