'Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll': Denis Leary Talks Getting Mistaken for Both Christopher Walken and Jane Lynch

Technically, Denis Leary has been researching his new FX comedy Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll — about an aging out-of-work rocker whose talented daughter he never knew he had (Elizabeth Gillies) gets his band back together — since he was a student at Emerson College. “I was in a theater group called the Emerson Comedy Workshop. We did all original shows that had original music. The music students that were in the band all became professional musicians. I mean, literally, the guy who writes the music for SpongeBob SquarePants was in that band, and other guys worked in the Jim Carroll Band and Ozzy Osbourne’s band. But a lot of the bands they were in broke up, and I got to witness that. And almost every single rock and roll band broke up because the lead singer and the lead guitar player couldn’t share the spotlight,” he tells Yahoo TV. “Every band is like this big dysfunctional family, and the lead singer and the lead guitar player are like the parents — if they divorce, the family falls apart, because nobody wants to see the Stones without Mick and Keith. I thought that was a really interesting way to look at family life, this group of people who can’t live with each other, can’t live without each other.”

Related: ‘Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll’: Can Denis Leary Become a Rock Star?

Here, Leary, who handpicked John Corbett to play the Richards to his Jagger and co-wrote most of the original music for the show with his “A–hole” collaborator Chris Phillips, tells us more about what to expect from the series premiering July 16 — and what it’s like to get mistaken for both Jane Lynch and Christopher Walken while filming.

The dynamic between your character, Johnny Rock, and John Corbett’s, Flash, feels familiar. But then you add in Johnny’s daughter, Gigi (Gillies), who wants them to reunite to write her songs and ends up the lead singer in the reunited band, and it’s unexpected. How did you decide to make Johnny a dad?
This is a guy that only talks to God for selfish reasons, like many of us do. But in the end, God saved him from killing himself, because if he had gotten famous and rich when he was 25, he’d be dead. So clearly, what he was supposed to be doing was fathering this daughter, and that’s going to keep him in the music world. But unfortunately, as he’s learning, he’s not going to be in the spotlight, she is. So again, comically and dramatically speaking, that’s a very interesting area because he needs her if he wants to stay in the music business, but she may become a big star and he won’t.

Gigi is a young woman who talks about wanting to be famous, and yet, you keep her likable because she does genuinely care about her father. How did you look at her character as you were writing the 10 episodes? 
I mean, obviously, she’s created with some of his genes, but clearly not the ones that are self-destructive. So that’s going to be, hopefully, a very complicated relationship. She needs him for various reasons… to learn how to write songs, to maneuver through the music world, and he’s probably going to pick up a few lessons about how to act his age. She acts way more wise than he does. I like the fact that she doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t do drugs; she has one desire, which is to be famous. So hopefully he’ll be able to tether her to earth a little bit and vice versa.

In episode 2, Gigi and the band want Johnny to sober up, but getting high is a part of his writing process. There’s a great line when, after Johnny writes a song sober, Gigi says it sounds like something Sting would write if he was living in Sarah McLachlan’s vagina. What do you have against Sting?
I loved that band The Police — again, another classic example of three guys that couldn’t live with each other or without each other. But especially in his solo career, Sting gets into that sometimes very pretentious and very… I don’t know what you would call it… I guess intellectual jazz rock. Chicks love it. My wife loves it. And by the way, I could never write a song or sing anywhere near as well as Sting, so I think part of it is just Johnny’s pure jealousy for this guy who’s this massive star, way more talented then he is, you know, in the end. But thank God in that episode he got out of jail by writing that song.

Joan Jett plays herself in episode 3. Are there any other cameos that we can expect? 
I knew I could trust Greg Dulli and Dave Grohl, because they can act. Not only can they act, they improvise everything that’s in that mini documentary [that starts the series]. I didn’t want to overload the first season with rock and roll star cameos, but I knew Joan. We’ve done a couple live concerts for Michael J. Fox’s foundation over the years, and I knew she could act. I just pitched her the idea: “What if I had supposedly slept with you, you know, 25 years ago, but in fact, all I did was pass out?” And she said, “I love it, let’s do it.” But if we get picked up for a second season, I’d love to get David Bowie, because he’s a great actor and I love him. And I’d love to get Jon Bon Jovi, because he can also act [and, he gets mentioned in more than one episode].

Early episodes in Season 1 revolve around a Johnny Rock Internet death hoax, the band traveling to Belgium, where the original group is still popular, and the band going to group therapy. What else is on tap?
There’s a thing called Normcore. It’s this movement that started in Brooklyn, of course, with some hipsters, and it’s insane. It actually got moved into the fashion world this year because a couple designers, during fashion week, started designing clothes along these lines. The Normcore movement is built around dressing like you are a member of the cast of Seinfeld. It’s all mall clothes — all white sneakers, mom jeans, tucked in long-sleeve buttoned-up shirts like Jerry Seinfeld used to wear. All these bands in New York have been doing it, so we decided to do a parody of it where Gigi meets this Normcore guy and, you know, he has a band, and she gets involved with him. So she starts dressing like she’s, as we call her, “vagina Jerry Seinfeld.” But the funny part was, while we were shooting it in Brooklyn and laughing at how Seinfeld she and her boyfriend looked, this girl walked up to Liz on the street and said, “Can I ask you a question? Where did you get those jeans? They’re really cool.” Liz is like, “They’re mom jeans.” She goes, “No, I know, but what store did you get them at because I want to get some.”

The other thing overriding it all is, even though Johnny and Flash think they are the two bosses of this band, it’s so clear by the end of the season that it’s actually run by Ava [Johnny’s longtime backup singer and lover, played by Elaine Hendrix] and Gigi. Whatever the two girls decide is what’s going to really happen. So again, I think that’s going to be a lot of fun to play with.

Johnny Rock gets mistaken for Christopher Walken at one point in the show. Has that ever happened to you?
Yes. That’s where I got it from. Listen, I usually get mistaken for Willem Dafoe. That happens all the time. Because we’ve shared a makeup person for some photo shoots, I know it’s happened to Willem where he’s been in an airport and someone says, “Hey man, I’m a big fan of Ice Age or Operation Dumbo Drop,” which I’m sure he must just love. But two things happened while we were filming.

We were on the street one day, and I was wearing kind of a woman’s retro ‘80s light blue leather jacket, because Johnny thought it’d look cool. I had Jackie Onassis glasses on, because he thought they looked like rock star glasses, and of course, I’ve got all the jewelry and that haircut. They call, “Cut!,” and I’m walking down the street with my son, and there were all these fans behind the police barricade. They were all asking for pictures and stuff, and this one lady was going crazy. She was like, “Can I go first because I’m late, and I’ve been waiting for an hour, and I have to go to this meeting,” and I said, “Sure.” So my son takes the picture of us, and the whole time, she’s like, “I’m your biggest fan. I love you. I can’t believe I’m meeting you.” And she takes her phone, and she’s goes, “I’ve got to go. My friends aren’t going to believe this. Glee is my favorite show. You’re my favorite character.” And I was like, “Oh my God, she thinks I’m Jane Lynch.”

I started laughing, but I looked in a store front, and all these fans that were there were like, “You kind of do look like Jane Lynch.” So I actually wrote a scene about me getting mistaken for Jane, and I had to cut it out. But some point in the future, I’m hoping to actually do an episode where I look like her and have her on the show.

And then probably like three weeks later, there was this haggard scene where Johnny is kind of hung over. [Between takes], I’m walking outside to have a cigarette, and the security guy who works for the actual building goes, “How you doing, Mr. Walken?” And I kind of laughed, and I was like, “I’m doing pretty good. How are you doing?” And he’s like, “Hey, listen, I don’t want to bother you, but can I get an autograph? Because you’re like my favorite actor of all time.” And I said, “Well, I don’t know.” And he goes, “No, I’m dead serious, man. Deer Hunter, Suicide Kings.” I was like, “No, no, no, no. I’m in Suicide Kings but I’m Denis Leary.” And he was like, “No, man. You’re too old to be Denis Leary.” And I was like, “Oh my God, this guy thinks I’m Christopher Walken.” I even said to him, “You know Chris is like 70,” and he just looked at me. So I signed Christopher Walken’s name for him. I mean, what am I going to do?

Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll premieres July 16 at 10 p.m. on FX.