ELO Part II: It Can Rise, but Can It Shine? : Pop: A modified version of the ‘70s orchestral rock band has been trying to re-establish itself in the U.S. The group, which plays the Coach House tonight, hopes its third album is a charm.

Back in 1971, Bev Bevan was less than enthusiastic when his two band mates in the Move, Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne, proposed marrying the heavy but pop-savvy rock they were playing to instruments normally associated with classical music.

“It worried me originally that there would be cellos and violins and French horns,” the veteran drummer recalled this week during a tour stop in Houston. “But it was a challenge. I wouldn’t say I was reluctant, but apprehensive.”

Before long, Bevan’s apprehensions eased. The Electric Light Orchestra, the product of that spiffing-up of catchy pop tunes and chunky backbeats with a bit of symphonic tinsel, turned into one of the most successful British rock bands of the 1970s.

ELO’s output and popularity declined in the 1980s, but Bevan and several other alumni are back in the ‘90s, trying to breath new life into the old concept as Electric Light Orchestra Part II. The band plays tonight at the Coach House.

Absent is Lynne, who, as singer, guitarist, songwriter and record producer, was the guiding force in ELO. Bevan, 48, says that as he began to organize ELO Part II in 1989, he offered Lynne an invitation that he knew would be refused: Lynne by then had moved on to a hugely successful career as a producer and songwriting collaborator for the likes of George Harrison, the Traveling Wilburys and Tom Petty.

“I haven’t spoken to [Lynne] for some years now, not that we’ve actually fallen out. I hope not,” Bevan said when asked what Lynne’s reaction to ELO Part II has been. “I don’t think Jeff cares one way or the other. He’s moved on to some new things, and he’s not really interested in ELO music.

“This is unlike the Pink Floyd thing,” Bevan added, alluding to the bitter round of lawsuits and acrimony sparked when that band’s chief conceptualist, Roger Waters, refused to join other old-line members in a Floyd revival. ELO Part II began with a legal agreement between Lynne and the reformed band, Bevan said. “Although it was done through our lawyers, it was done as amicably as possible.”

Bevan said the terms allow ELO Part II to carry on with a modified version of the old band name while entitling Lynne to a share of its record royalties. Lynne could not be reached for comment.

For all the strings that swirl through ELO records (and still do in ELO Part II), Bevan cheerfully admits that the classics are not his cup of tea.

“I was just an old rock ‘n’ roll fan brought up on Elvis Presley and Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis,” he said. “I didn’t [listen to classical music], and I still don’t, to be honest. I’m quite ignorant, a bonehead really. I don’t know one composer from another.”

In any case, he added, ELO never took the classical-rock fusion seriously, as did such prog-rock contemporaries as Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The band’s point of departure wasn’t Beethoven or Grieg--both covered in tongue-in-cheek fashion on early ELO albums--but producer/arranger George Martin’s use of orchestral backing on Beatles songs.

ELO Part II is on its third album since emerging in 1990. Bevan says the fate of the just-released “Moment of Truth” may determine whether the band continues to try to re-establish itself in the United States. Besides Bevan, violinist Mik Kaminski, singer-bassist Kelly Groucutt and keyboardist/orchestral arranger Louis Clark are holdovers from the ‘70s glory days. Guitarist Phil Bates and keyboards player Eric Troyer, the lone American, are newcomers who along with Groucutt split Lynne’s old lead-vocal duties.

“We’re building a big following in other parts of the world,” Bevan said, noting that the band recently played an Australian tour in large venues, backed by a 45-piece orchestra. “But it’s really been tough in America. I’ve got no intention of slugging it out year after year around America trying to break ELO Part II. It’ll either happen with this album, or we’ll concentrate [on other countries].”

The band is staking its bid on an upcoming single, “One More Tomorrow,” which is replete with the hooky, many-layered vocals that were an old ELO signature.

While ELO Part II tours to generate interest in its new stuff, Bevan has no qualms about playing the crowd-pleasing oldies, among them such Top 10 hits as “Can’t Get It Out of My Head,” “Evil Woman” and “Telephone Line.”

“Although Jeff’s obviously not in the band, he wrote such great songs, and people never forget. To a lot of people, ELO was a huge part of their growing up. People want to hear those songs, and the audience is the boss.”

For some hard-core connoisseurs of British rock, ELO’s less famous precursor, the Move, holds a more honored spot in their record collections. The band, whose success on the British charts financed the launching of ELO in 1971, could range from smooth, Beatles-inspired pop to hilariously heavy hard-rock pounders. The Move’s raw, ferocious version of Lynne’s “Do Ya” far surpasses ELO’s shinier hit remake and qualifies as one of the most splendid four-minute interludes available to a rock fan.

The Move scored a string of British and European hits but never broke in America. It was known for its zany side: Roy Wood, the eccentric singer-guitarist, was sartorially odd even by hippie- and glam-era standards, and the Move’s trademark onstage maneuver was to have singer Carl Wayne take an ax to a television set.

In a crowning moment, Bevan recalled, the Move substituted an automobile for the usual TV set at a big hippie-era show in London.

“It was an all-night acid happening,” he said. “It was an American car all painted up sort of psychedelic style, and there were two strippers standing on top of the car. Carl Wayne took his ax and smashed the hell out of it. The crowd was standing there, looking fairly bemused by the whole thing.”

Bevan says he remains in contact with Wood, who has lost none of his oddball splendor.

“He still looks quite strange now,” Bevan said. “About six weeks ago, I went to a Celine Dion concert in Birmingham [the city from which the Move and ELO sprang], and he was there. He’s always been a big fan of girl singers; for all his weird appearance, he was always a big fan of Karen Carpenter. He wasn’t wearing any war paint [a Wood trademark since his post-ELO days with the band Wizzard] but his hair was fairly pink, and he’s still dressing bizarrely, black tights and ballet type shoes.”

Wood, little heard-from since the 1970s, fronts a band these days, Bevan said.

“But, typical of him, it’s so impossible,” Bevan said. “The band is excellent--it’s like a 12-piece all-girl band with a five-piece brass section. It looks terrific and sounds good too, but nobody will pay him to cover expenses. I keep trying to tell him that he’s not going to find a promoter to bring a 13-piece band to America.”

Bevan also tells a memorable war story--especially if you’re familiar with the Druid sequence in “This Is Spinal Tap”--about his mid-’80s stint as the tour drummer for Black Sabbath.

“We actually had a Stonehenge set that was so big it wouldn’t fit in any arenas. We had these big stones, enormous things. We did rehearsals in England, in the equivalent of an aircraft hangar, but nobody had taken the trouble” to measure whether the stones would fit the venues Black Sabbath was playing. “We just dumped it after one show in Canada, and as far as I know, it’s still there.”

* Electric Light Orchestra Part II plays tonight at 7 and 9:30 at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $19.50. (714) 496-8930.