Coakley Seeks a New Sound, Cans Rule 62

Rule 62 front man Brian Coakley has 86-ed the promising band and is pursuing a new musical direction he said will marry pop-rock songwriting with “strange sounds” generated by drum machines, tape loops and computers.

Coakley decided to break up the band, which formed about five years ago, over the summer when it began working on demos for a follow-up to its strong but poor-selling 1997 debut album for Maverick Records.

“I thought the songs were really good, but they were the same kind of poppy songs, not breaking any ground or pushing my artistic limits,” said Coakley, who has been part of the O.C. rock scene’s creative elite since his early 1990s’ run with Cadillac Tramps.

He expects to be dropped by Maverick because his relationship with the label soured over how the “Rule 62” CD was promoted.

Coakley is pushing ahead, working on a new album at his home studio in Long Beach with former Joykiller guitarist Sean Greaves as his right-hand man.

“I’m not letting anybody hear it; it’s a departure from what anyone’s heard from me,” Coakley said. “It’s a little bit scary, but it actually feels good.”

Coakley’s plan is to work painstakingly on the record until he has just the sound he wants, then look for a new record deal.

Meanwhile, he sounded a little warmer than in the past about the idea of playing reunions--or even doing a reunion album--with the Cadillac Tramps. He said he had a good experience playing with his old bandmates a few months ago at a Musicares drug-abuse assistance benefit at the Roxy in West Hollywood that was a memorial show for the Tramps’ former booking agent, Gabe Bloom.

“But,” Coakley said, “if it was going to be real serious and not fun, I wouldn’t do it.”