Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll Thursdays, 10 p.m., FX.

The first episode of Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll opens with talking-head testimonials from real-life rockers Dave Grohl and the Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli praising fictional rock band The Heathens, but like pretty much everything about the music industry in Denis Leary’s new comedy, it rings completely false. Twenty-five years after the band imploded on the eve of success, Heathens frontman Johnny Rock (Leary) is a washed-up loser clinging to old dreams, but he’s reinvigorated when Gigi (Disney Channel veteran Elizabeth Gillies), the daughter he never knew he had, enlists his help in realizing her own rock-star ambitions.

Reunited with his old bandmates, Johnny wastes no time in turning back into a rock-star egomaniac, and Leary plays Johnny as the same kind of charming asshole that he’s been playing for years, most notably on long-running FX drama Rescue Me. Sex & Drugs is lighter than Rescue Me, but it’s similarly self-congratulatory, especially in its portrayal of Leary’s character (Leary created the show and wrote every episode). The more people talk about what a musical genius Johnny is, the less convincing it sounds. As a music-industry story, Sex & Drugs is confused and outdated, with irritating, one-dimensional characters and self-consciously edgy humor. Like its protagonist, it’s mostly a sad relic straining to appear hip.