Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll

Premise

Fifty-year-old Johnny Rock was once the lead singer of The Heathens, a rising rock band from the late 1980s and early 1990s that broke up following the release of only one album, mainly due to Johnny's life of excess. Twenty-one years later, Johnny struggles to survive in the music industry. He is given a second chance, however, when he learns that he has a 21-year-old daughter named Gigi with one of his former back up singers. Gigi moves to New York to try to make it as a musician. She comes up with a proposition: if her dad reforms The Heathens, she will replace him as lead singer, the band will change their name to The Assassins, and in return he will stay on board as lead songwriter for the band, as well as coach to Gigi. Johnny experiences the challenges of an aging rock star in a music landscape fueled by hip-hop and pop, as well as caring for someone other than himself for once with his newly found daughter now in his life.

Cast

Main

Denis Leary as Johnny Rock, the former lead singer of the band 'The Heathens'

John Corbett as Josiah 'Flash' Bacon, the former Heathens' guitarist. Until the formation of The Assassins, he had a regular gig playing for Lady Gaga

Elizabeth Gillies as Gigi Rock, the lead singer of The Assassins and Johnny's daughter

Robert Kelly as Hector 'Bam Bam' Jimenez, the former Heathens drummer and now The Assassins' drummer

Elaine Hendrix as Ava Delany, the former Heathens backup singer, Johnny's longtime live-in girlfriend, and his moral compass

John Ales as Sonny 'Rehab' Silverstien, the former Heathens' bassist and now The Assassins' bassist

Recurring

Josh Pais as Ira Feinbaum (season 1), The Heathens' former manager and the first manager of The Assassins

Callie Thorne as Cat Zakarian, a back up singer for The Heathens and Gigi's mother

Eric Sheffer Stevens as Brook Lanley (season 2), a hip rock producer

Rebecca Naomi Jones as Davvy O'Dell (season 2), a downtown singer

Mark Gessner as Noah Perkins (season 2), The Assassins' new manager

Episodes

Development

In January 2014, FX Networks announced that it would air Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, a rock-and-roll themed comedy starring Denis Leary, "in the near future". Leary was the head writer and one of the executive producers. In a subsequent interview, Leary said he had come up with the idea for the show because, having met well-known bands such as Aerosmith and The Cars, he had also been interested in the bands that had not been successful.

John Corbett was cast as Flash on March 7, 2014, followed by Robert Kelly as Bam Bam and Elizabeth Gillies as Gigi on March 14. Prior to being cast, Corbett had been a professional guitarist who performed with his band; by contrast, Kelly said that he did not know how to play the drums when he was cast. In casting Gillies as Gigi, Leary said he had been looking for someone who could sing songs emotionally and was "able to act, do comedy, improvise and be sexy enough to be believable as a lead singer". Elaine Hendrix was cast as Ava later in March 2014. John Ales was cast as Rehab, the band's bassist, despite not knowing how to play the bass. The show also includes guest appearances from performers such as Joan Jett.

At the end of June 2014, FX ordered a ten-episode first season of Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. Fox Television Studios and FX co-produced the show, which was filmed in New York City. In September 2015, the network renewed the show for a second season, which premiered on June 30, 2016. Leary said of the second season: "We all sort of have multiple mid-life crises happening at the same time". On September 9, 2016, following the end of the second season, FX canceled the show.

Soundtracks

Season 1

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (Songs from the FX Original Comedy Series) is the soundtrack album for the first season of the TV series. The album was released on September 10, 2015.

Eight songs from the album were released as promotional singles; "Animal" (on July 16, 2015), "Desire" and "New York 2015" (on July 30, 2015), "Die Trying" (on August 6, 2015), "Put It on Me" (on August 27, 2015), "What's My Name" (on September 10, 2015), and "Complicated" (on September 17, 2015).

Season 2

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (Songs from the FX Original Comedy Series) Season 2 is the soundtrack album for the second season of the TV series. The album was released on September 1, 2016.

Six songs from the album were released as promotional singles; "Ain't No Valentine" (on June 30, 2016), "Don't Break Me Too" (on July 14, 2016), "Just Let Me Go" (on July 28, 2016), "Raise a Hand" (on August 4, 2016), and "Already in Love" and "So Many Miles" (on August 25, 2016).

Critical reception

The first season of Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll received mixed reviews. The review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes gave the first season a rating of 59%, based on 46 reviews, with an average rating of 5.66/10. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the series has a score of 60 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Variety magazine summarized Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll as "a great title, a good premise and a just-OK show", particularly praising the show's "smaller moments". While Linda Holmes of NPR praised Leary's performance and the quality of the script, she believed the show's premise to be cliched. Willa Paskin wrote for Slate magazine that the show's premise was heavily influenced by Leary's personal perception of rock music. Noel Murray of The A.V. Club wrote that the first season's episodes were not particularly eventful, other than the pilot, but that nonetheless "the series has a certain scrappy charm".

On Rotten Tomatoes, the second season has a rating of 63%, based on 8 reviews, with an average rating of 4.80/10. Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that, whereas season 1 had been a light-hearted comedy, the series "felt a little deeper, a little more like a family" in season 2. Goodman particularly praised Gillies's comic timing, the dynamic between Leary and Corbett, the development of Hendrix's character, and the character development of Kelly's and Ales's characters during season 2. Conversely, Verne Gay of Newsday saw season 2 as a "letdown", saying: "The song remains the same—all lies and jest (still, a TV star hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest)".