Once Cream of Crop, Jack Bruce Returns to Rock Wars : Pop music: Veteran bass player wants to ‘recapture the feeling’ of playing to live audiences. He leads his new band, into the Coach House tonight.

“When it came to getting along together, they might have called us Sour Cream,” quipped bassist Jack Bruce, referring to his stormy 2 1/2 years with drummer Ginger Baker and guitarist Eric Clapton in the late-’60s rock super-group Cream.

Sitting in an elegant Beverly Hills office, Bruce, a small man wearing rumpled clothes and flashing a beaming smile that never seemed to quit, continued: “We did a lot of things wrong when it came to getting along. In many ways, it was like a bad marriage. We were young and foolish. But there were high points. We did make some good music.”

He was just being modest. Cream made some great music.

Fans still recall Bruce, 46, from his glory days. That’s why there’s such interest in his new band, which plays tonight at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and Thursday at the Palace.

These dates are part of a tour promoting Bruce’s Epic album, “A Question of Time”--his first American solo album and tour since 1981. The band also includes Baker, who has been both Bruce’s friend and nemesis over the years.

“We’ve patched up our differences,” said Bruce. “We can play together now. But we used to have some terrible times. Lord knows Ginger can be difficult. But can you believe that I can be difficult too?”

Actually, it’s hard to imagine this hearty, outgoing Scotsman being temperamental. But he reiterated: “I have my bad moments if people push the wrong buttons. Ginger and Eric used to push the wrong buttons sometimes.”

Cream, with its blues-influenced rock and its winding, improvisational jams, was the band that created a cult of musicianship in rock. The trio was revered, but their meteoric career lasted only from 1966-68. Why did Cream turn sour?

“Personality conflicts, hassles with fame, drug abuse--we all had drug problems,” Bruce replied. “A combination of many things. Cream was sort of an accident anyway. No one thought we’d get that big. We got over two good years out of it. That was enough.”

Bruce has been involved with various jazz, rock and fusion bands over the years, and has recorded assorted solo albums in Europe and the United States. Though none of these projects has made a huge commercial impact, he has always been a respected musician. But thanks to songwriting royalties--he was Cream’s main composer and has a catalogue of 150 songs--he is financially secure.

So why, in his late 40s, has he re-entered the rock ‘n’ roll grind?

“It’s not the money,” replied Bruce. “I just want to reach as many people as possible with my music. There’s an excitement that comes from having a large audience that I’ve missed. I want to recapture that feeling.”

Though noted for his skill with blues and rock, Bruce considers himself a jazz player.

“When I left home at 17, I was working on this U.S. Air Force base in Italy,” recalled Bruce, who was raised in a working-class family in Scotland. “That’s where I got turned on to (jazz bassist Charlie) Mingus. I really wanted to get deeper and deeper into jazz.”

Bruce turned to jazz bass after briefly studying cello at a Scottish music academy. “Ginger and I started out as a rhythm section, playing free jazz influenced by people like Ornette Coleman. I was really into modern jazz. I was a snob.”

But Bruce also liked the blues. He played in three blues-based bands, headed by Alexis Korner, Graham Bond and John Mayall, before the formation of Cream. Clapton, who had also worked with Mayall, lured Bruce and Baker into the blues-oriented style that was the essence of Cream.

Bruce is still ambivalent about Clapton: “We get along and we don’t. If he walked in now I’d shake his hand and be friendly. But he’s done stuff to rub me the wrong way. It’s sort of love-hate.”

One thing that slightly miffs Bruce is that many fans think Clapton--who is still a major star--was the main singer and songwriter in Cream. “Eric helps perpetuate that myth in his own subtle way,” Bruce said. “It’s a minor thing, but it’s still somewhat aggravating.”

The last time he saw Clapton, Bruce said, was when Clapton sat in with Bruce’s band last year at the Bottom Line in New York. “I didn’t get to talk to him much then,” Bruce said. “We haven’t really talked in years. But we’ll get together again one day.”

That reunion might happen, Bruce said, on this tour if he and Clapton are in the same town. “The three of us would jam together,” Bruce said.

Although his band is called the Jack Bruce Band With Ginger Baker, Bruce said a reunion would be different. “It would be like old times. We could call it Sweet Cream--old but still sweet.”