Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan, the masterminds behind the techno sensation The Crystal Method, are extremely busy people these days.

They just finished up a tour of the United States with David Holmes, techno’s version of Jack Kerouac, and just returned last Tuesday from touring overseas.

Yesterday, the duo spent the entire day in the studio recording remixes of some of the songs from “Vegas,” the group’s debut release which is less than a year old and is still making waves in rave cultures worldwide.

It is because of the group’s global touring schedule and its tight recording schedule that an interview couldn’t be set up for this article.

The Crystal Method has also been making waves on the big and small screens. The group’s collaboration with Filter, “Trip Like I Do,” was featured in the movie “Spawn” and was the only song on the movie’s soundtrack to become a radio hit.

“High Roller,” a track from “Vegas,” has been prominently featured in a television commercial for the 1999 Mazda Miata, and has also served as the theme for a public service spot pointing out the dangers of using methamphetamines (the group has constantly claimed over the past year that its name is not a reference to the illicit substance).

Although the group is barely on the outskirts of its quickly growing popularity (it has already been called “the United States’ great white hope in the techno sweepstakes” by Rolling Stone magazine in its September 4, 1997 issue), it is hard to imagine that the group has been fairly obscure for almost a decade.

The group formed in 1988 when Jordan and Kirkland met while working together at a part-time job. The two quickly formed a friendship and began creating music on equipment that Kirkland owned.

Kirkland, who draws his musical inspiration from a variety of sources including heavy metal, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Depeche Mode, bought his first guitar when he was 12. He took guitar lessons and learned how to play by ear, which proved to be invaluable when he started to write his own music.

When Kirkland graduated from high school, his family gave him a sequencer and a sampler as graduation presents. Soon after that, he bought a keyboard and began to spend all of his time writing various types of music.

Jordan’s musical pedigree is a bit more impressive. While he was a student at UNLV, he became a late-night DJ and eventually was promoted to music/program director.

During this time, he started producing material for local bands and taking all of the music production classes UNLV offered.

Jordan graduated in 1989 and moved to Los Angeles to take a job as a recording engineer. But his relocation did not end his musical collaboration with Kirkland, who drove down to L.A. every weekend to compose music with Jordan during the day and participate in the rave scene at night.

In 1991, Kirkland moved to Los Angeles as well. The duo quickly started producing material for other people (Moby, the Zen Cowboys, Black Grape and Keoki to name a few) in a studio they had built in a two-car garage.

But they soon discovered that producing music for other people wasn’t creatively satisfying, and they started working on their own material.

It was during this transition that The Crystal Method finally started to come into its own. The group recorded “Now Is The Time,” which was released by a small, independent label called City of Angels on the “Classic California Cuts” compilation.

The group then went on to contribute material to several dozen 12″ compilations that were released by City of Angels and a couple of other small, independent labels.

The majority of this material (which included “Busy Child” and “Keep Hope Alive,” which was inspired by the speech Jesse Jackson made at the 1992 Democratic National Convention) would later be included on “Vegas” after the group signed to Outpost Recordings (a division of Geffen Records) in 1997.

The group’s Geffen deal brought it out of rave popularity into the collective conscience of America.

The Crystal Method, in the span of nine months, took a spot on 1997’s ill-fated Electronic Highway Tour, played at the 17th annual CMJ Music Marathon (along with the Sneaker Pimps, Death in Vegas, Aphex Twin, Fluke and Daft Punk), contributed a song to the “Mortal Kombat II” soundtrack (“Come Together”) and the “Spawn” soundtrack, released its debut release, and started lending its music to commercials.

Now, the techno sensation will be heading toward Ames to show the Midwest that not all techno groups stand absolutely still on stage scratching records (and themselves) and plinking away at keyboards.

The group’s stage show reportedly makes use of a dazzling light show, a smoke machine and “flashformer” boxes.

The Crystal Method will be playing at Rock Veishea Saturday night.