Denis Leary, the Renaissance Man of 'Rescue Me'

DATE June 7, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Denis Leary on his series "Rescue Me" and aging
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest is comic, actor and writer Denis Leary. He first became known for
his short, corrosive, satirical bits on MTV. Now he's the co-creator,
executive producer, co-writer and star of the series "Rescue Me." The fourth
season beings on FX next Wednesday. The third season has just come out on
DVD. Leary plays Tommy Gavin, a New York City firefighter who's constantly
risking his life to save others. But he's constantly letting down his friends
and family. He drinks too much. He cheats. He lies when he thinks he needs
to and gets into fights.

At the start of season four Tommy's personal life, as usual, is in shambles.
He's been separated from his wife Janet, but he's just moved back in with her.
They're living together platonically while he helps to raise her new baby,
which may or may not be his. Their teenage daughter Colleen is angry with
him, and he's angry with her. He's just caught her coming in from a date with
her boyfriend at 3 in the morning, drunk and smelling of marijuana. In this
scene he's talking with Janet about it. By the way, this exchange includes
some brief crude language.

(Soundbite from "Rescue Me")

Mr. DENIS LEARY: (As Tommy) Colleen is smoking pot.

Ms. ANDREA ROTH: (As Janet) I know.

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) You know? What do you mean you know?

Ms. ROTH: (As Janet) It was good pot, too, not that she...(word censored by
network)...wasted it.

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) Great! Great. That's a great attitude. I told you
years ago, pot's a gateway drug. So tonight she comes home, not only is she
high, she's drunk.

Ms. ROTH: (As Janet) What?

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) Oh, yeah...(word censored by network)...puked. Yeah.

Ms. ROTH: (As Janet) Was she driving?

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) No, I think her 50-year-old boyfriend was handling the
driving responsibilities.

Ms. ROTH: (As Janet) Oh, he's 26. That's good. That's good.

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) Why's that good?

Ms. ROTH: (As Janet) Because he doesn't drink.

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) OK. I'm pretty sure that she's banging this guy.
Yeah!

Ms. ROTH: (As Janet) I know. She's on the pill.

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) You put her on the pill? I--insane. Totally--I mean,
you've got the whole toolbox going, booze, penises, I mean, I can't believe
I'm finally the moral compass in this family.

Ms. ROTH: (As Janet) Yeah, right.

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) You're an enabler, that's what you are. Yeah. Yeah.

(Soundbite of baby crying)

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) Sh. When were you planning on telling me about this?

Ms. ROTH: (As Janet) Well, I was going to drop the sex bomb on you a while
ago, but then this whole platonic living arrangement thing has been going so
well, you know?

Mr. LEARY: (As Tommy) Yeah.

Ms. ROTH: (As Janet) And then you always take the word sex as an invitation,
so I didn't want to risk it. And as for the pot and booze, well, check her
birth certificate. The last name's Gavin.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Denis Leary, welcome back to FRESH AIR. "Rescue Me" was inspired by a
couple of firefighters you were close to. Would you tell us something about
them?

Mr. LEARY: They're--one of them is the technical adviser to "Rescue Me,"
old, old friend of mine named Terry Quinn, who's been a New York City
firefighter for 20-some-odd years now. And he is one of my oldest friends
and, because he's still a working firefighter--and, much like Tommy Gavin, has
no interest in becoming an officer or anything other than a truck guy, which
means the guys who actually, you know, run off into the fire, you know, when
they jump off the rig at an event, he's an action guy. So he's also our
technical adviser in charge of all of our big fire scenes.

And the other guy, who shall remain nameless, who's a good friend of mine, as
well, is--you know I just saw him last night. We had the premiere here in New
York, and whenever I see him, whatever he's talking about in terms of his
personal life becomes fodder for the upcoming episodes of "Rescue Me" because
he lives such a rich and interesting life.

And the two of those guys combined are who Tommy Gavin is. And he, again, is
just a firefighter who's been in a very busy house, you know, for 20-some-odd
years and has no plans on leaving or retiring, or--he just lives and dies to
fight fires.

GROSS: You have a cousin who was killed in a fire.

Mr. LEARY: Yeah.

GROSS: And do you, do you think he ever thought that that would happen to
him?

Mr. LEARY: He used to say when his wife or his mother or anybody would say,
`You know, what are we going to do if something happens to you?' because he
was considered a quote-unquote "fireman's fireman," like he was the first guy
in. The night that he died he was filling in for a guy who had done a favor
for him and he was supposed to be driving the truck, but he hated staying with
the truck while guys went into a fire. So he traded off with another guy and
said, `You know, I don't want to sit with the truck if something happens
tonight. I want to be in the building.' So he wasn't supposed to be working
that night, he wasn't supposed to be actually going into the building, but he
was because that's where he wanted to be. He was looking for two homeless
people. He used to say, `You guys are just going to have to deal with it if I
get killed.'

See, the amazing part of that story with my cousin is, not just that he went
into a burning, you know, inferno of a cold storage warehouse building that
the windows had been bricked up, he went in looking for two homeless people.
He got trapped with another guy. The kid that I grew up with, that we grew up
with named Tommy Spencer, who was outside when they closed the building down.
The chief said, `Nobody else is going in, it's too big, we're shutting the
building down.' Tommy Spencer tied three other guys to himself and he walked
up to the chief who was blocking the doorway and said, `Get out of the way or
I'll knock you down. I'm going in to get Paul and Jerry.' And they went in.
And within, you know, minutes the building went up a second time. That is an
amazing amount of courage. And there was a sense of brotherhood, and just to
begin with, the sense of brotherhood towards your fellow man, two homeless
people that you don't even know; and then the sense of well, `We know this is
probably not going to work, but we have to go, to make that last stand to see
if we can get those guys out.'

GROSS: I'd imagine that, you know, starring and doing some of the writing and
of course also producing the series "Rescue Me" has you thinking a lot about
death and about kind of self-destructive impulses, because like your character
Tommy, he deals with life and death every day in putting himself in
life-threatening situations to rescue people. At the same time he flirts with
death through smoking and alcohol. and really stupid risks he takes in his
personal life.

Mr. LEARY: Yeah. Yeah, I think part of the attraction to writing these guys
was the male ego as it exists in almost every man, and then the male ego as
required for the type of courage that this job takes. One of the things that
the male ego does when mortality bumps up against it is you want to have sex,
you want to prove, `Ah, I'm vital, I'm alive. Look at me, I'm alive.' And
these guys are living this crazy job that has everything to do with life and
death, but nothing to do with life as we know it: love, death and taxes. You
know, the way we look at it. So that's where I find it to be very rich. And
it never ceases to amaze me, the stories.

Like a buddy of mine told me a story today, who's a firefighter. He was at
work, he got a phone call from his brother, and his brother said `I've got
some bad news.' And he said, `What is it?' He said, `Dad died.' He said,
`When?' `About five minutes ago.' And he said, `All right.' And he went back
into the bunk room and feel asleep. The alarm went off an hour later, he went
to a fire. Never dealt with his father's death because he dealt with death.
And then one day he was reading "Flags of Our Fathers" last year and he
collapsed for two days and basically couldn't stop crying. You know, 10 years
after his father had died, because he's so afraid of letting the other
emotions about the girl that he didn't save here, or the guy that came out of
9/11 like him and the guys who didn't, guys that he knew and loved, and so
many emotions, that they're like--you have to be an animal. You have to be
like a shark. You have to keep moving forward, `Yeah, everything's behind me,
everything's behind me, everything's behind me.' That's an interesting story.
I mean, what's going to happen? What's going to happen to Tommy Gavin when he
stops moving?

GROSS: Yeah, well...

Mr. LEARY: And what--you know.

GROSS: ...well, his character's really attracted to extremes. You know, so
like you rescuing people and fighting fires and stuff. But those extremes
don't match in, say, the life as a spouse or as a father, and he has real
trouble in those areas.

Mr. LEARY: Yeah. And most of the guys that I know, even the guys that this
character is based on, have those same...

GROSS: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mr. LEARY: ...issues. But you know what? If you ask them, if you cornered
them--you wouldn't even have to corner them, you could just ask them--they'll
say that's what makes them a great firefighter. One of the things, they talk
about women compartmentalizing emotions and approaches and how they live, and
that's one of the things about--like even my cousin Jerry, he knew that there
was a chance every time he was, you know, at work that he wasn't going to come
back. And he was OK with that, even though he loved his kids and his wife.
And his wife understood when she met him that that's what he wanted to be. He
knew that was a box in his head that this is always a possibility and it
doesn't matter, `I still will take the chance.' It's like rolling the dice,
you know.

GROSS: In some ways, you are the, you know, actor, comic, writer who has
taken on like the male ego out of control as your subject.

Mr. LEARY: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: You know, it was kind of that as a comic, you know, in some of like
your rants...

Mr. LEARY: Yeah.

GROSS: ...and some of your movie characters, but certainly, you know, in your
character in "Rescue Me." And I guess I'm interested in finding out why that's
your territory, why you're so interested in like male ego out of control.

Mr. LEARY: I don't know. I think--as a comedian I hope I had enough of a
tongue in my cheek sometimes so that people knew I wasn't just taking the piss
out of individual politicians or pop culture icons or attitudes that I found
pretentious. But also a little bit out of that macho thing, you know, in "No
Cure for Cancer," I talked a lot about my father and the John Wayne, we don't
go to the hospital even though we might have cut our own fingers off with the
saw mentality. And, you know, and how the sons of that generation of men were
supposed to deal with being a man. I just, I guess because I am a man, I find
that territory interesting.

But as a comedian I love to hit--I mean, for instance, you know, I do like
four or five gigs every fall. I don't have that much time to go on tour now
with "Rescue Me," but I do a couple of charity gigs as a stand-up, and I do
the New York Comedy Festival every year. And I refuse to do anything that's
material I've done before. And I don't write all of my jokes, I don't write
jokes. I have bullet points and I just improvise. So when I saw Mel Gibson's
thing happen where he got arrested and said those anti-Semitic remarks, I had
10 minutes of material automatically from that. When I saw the enumeration of
things that Paul McCartney supposedly did to Heather Mills McCartney, I
immediately started practicing hopping around on one leg because she said Paul
would force her to go to the bathroom instead of using a bedpan. I mean,
these are--I get up and I have 10 minutes of material about how difficult it
is to be a one-legged woman married to a Beatle. That's, you know, I just go
by what I find funny.

And it relates to why firefighters became available to me and the show was
funny and heartbreaking, is because in the kitchen, in the firehouse, there's
a lot of black humor, because that's how they avoid the real emotions and get
around the corner, you know, from what they just saw. And I relate to that.
You know, I relate to sort of, I guess as they say in Ireland, taking the piss
out of whatever the subject might be, you know.

GROSS: People probably assume that because of your onstage persona as a comic
and because of the character you play in "Rescue Me" and previously on "The
Job" that you might be as unenlightened as the characters you play. Does that
happen a lot, and are you as unenlightened as the characters you play?

Mr. LEARY: I don't think I am, but I can guarantee you that as I've traveled
through life, my wife, my daughter constantly remind or re-remind me of how
I'm not paying attention to this particular thing or that particular thing.
But I think I'm enlightened enough to see, like I think to see the humor in it
you have to have, you know, you have to have some clarity in what you're
looking at. And I hope I'm--actually I feel more--it's funny, I'm turning 50
this year. I--it's not a big birthday for me because I don't feel 50. And I
have two teenagers, and they kind of help to keep you on your toes. But I
definitely feel like now, when Paul Newman once said, after he did the movie
"The Verdict" and I think he was about 50 when he did it, he said "this is the
first time I really felt like I knew what I was doing as an actor." Now,
meanwhile I'd heard that quote--that was 1980, and I thought, `What's he
kidding?' "Cool Hand Luke," you know, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,"
"Somebody up There"--I mean, I thought he was one of the greatest actors who
had ever worked. But now I know what he was talking about. Now at 50 I feel
like, `Ah, now I get it.' You know? It took me this long. Now I really have
some stuff I want to say, you know.

GROSS: My guest is Denis Leary. His series "Rescue Me" starts its fourth
season next Wednesday on FX. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guest is comic, writer and actor Denis Leary. He co-created and
stars in the FX series "Rescue Me." It begins its fourth season next week.

So talk a little bit about shooting the fire sequences on "Rescue Me,"
where--I mean, there's sequences where, you know, where you or other
characters are surrounded by, you know, a wall or two of fire.

Mr. LEARY: Yeah.

GROSS: You're falling through buildings and so on.

Mr. LEARY: Yeah.

GROSS: So like every week there must be a lot of like serious special effects
you have to...

Mr. LEARY: Well, yeah, there's a lot of special effects. What we've done
this year, which I'm--you've probably seen the first...

GROSS: Three.

Mr. LEARY: ...yeah, the first evidences in the first episode where there's
just that one long take with no edits where we walk into the building...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. LEARY: ...and into a room and then the room catches on fires, and then
the building basically explodes. And there's no stuntmen in that scene, and
there's no cuts until the floor collapses. And that's the beginning of this
upping the ante that we did this year. As the season goes on, there are
longer sequences--some are four, some are five, some are seven minutes long
where we go into a call and there's no editing. And the camera follows us
into the building and the fire explodes and the action continues and there are
no stuntmen. It's the real actors. And it's really very difficult to shoot,
but it's fabulously, I hope, entertaining and on the edge of the seat for the
audience. Because we wanted to make it even more realistic than we've done
before about how it feels for these guys when they go in.

GROSS: Well, in the scene that you're describing, you know, three or so of
the guys--including you--basically are, it's as if you're like sliding down a
chute right into the fire...

Mr. LEARY: Yeah.

GROSS: ...right into a wall of fire...

Mr. LEARY: Yeah.

GROSS: ...when the floor collapses beneath you. So what exactly are you
being chuted into?

Mr. LEARY: In the original take the floor actually, we rigged the floor in
the building to go up. And we slid down onto pads--which is still pretty
scary, because it's a three story drop. And, you know, all the things in the
room go first and then the actors come afterwards. So it is a little
dangerous. And then in the special effect department we slid down that just
as high into a green screen with pads.

But we've just finished shooting a maze fire that took--it was five and a half
minutes long from beginning to end in which the fire escalates as we go
through and there's no cuts, there's no stuntmen, and the special effects are
happening within the scene. And it was scary as hell, but it looks great on
camera. You know, basically, what we do, when I do those scenes is we come up
with an idea and I say to Terry Quinn, you know, we're not even going to write
the dialogue. `You tell us what we should be saying and what the radio calls
should be,' and then Terry designs it, you know, because he's still a working
firefighter. One time last year we had a bus fire. I called him up and I
said, `Peter and Evan and I are thinking of doing a bus fire,' and he said,
`I'll call you right back; I'm at a bus fire right now.' And he called us back
and he said, `All right, here's what we just did.' So we try to make it as
realistic as possible.

And I think for the audience this year it'll be--I think it'll be--really
scare them and keep their eyes--I love when you're watching something and you
realize, `My God, there's no, this is the scene that just started, there's no
cuts here.' Like that movie "Children Of Men" that was out last year. There
were a couple of sequences where I went, `Oh my God, these are the--that's
Julianne Moore, there's no cuts here. There,' you know, and you just can't,
you can't even breathe you're so taken in by what you're watching. So that's
hopefully going to happen to the audience for "Rescue Me" this year.

GROSS: Now, you were roommates with Mario Cantone at Emerson College or
classmates.

Mr. LEARY: Well, no I wasn't actually his roommate, but we were in the
same...

GROSS: Same place.

Mr. LEARY: ...theater group together.

GROSS: OK.

MR. LEARY: And his roommate for a brief time was Gina Gershon, who was
younger than us, but by happenstance ended up being sort of being Mario's
roommate. And from Mario's family, his supposed girlfriend, you know.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. LEARY: Even though Mario--from the first time I met Mario, there was no
question, you know, we went to Emerson College which was a fabulous college,
creatively. And, you know, there were three women to every man and two out of
every three guys was gay. So it was--but his parents ran a
nightclub/restaurant, and his brothers used to work the door, very tough
Italian family. And, you know, it used to be funny. We'd go in there and
Mario was as--Mario never pretended to be anybody but who he is. And his
brothers would go, `That Mario, he's so creative, right?' And we'd be like,
`Oh yeah, he's real creative. He's real creative.' You know, `That Gina, boy,
she's sure pretty.' `Yeah, she's pretty. Yep.' So, but he was--I tell you,
that was a very talented group of people at that school. And out of all of
them--and myself included--nobody was funnier than Mario Cantone.

GROSS: Well, it amuses me to think of you as being friends because your
onstage character or you know like the Tommy character tends to be kind of
like homophobic. But obviously you and Mario Cantone, who's very gay and very
out, were good friends. So obviously you're not like...

Mr. LEARY: No, no, not at all. As a matter of fact--I don't think Mario, by
the way, was ever in...

GROSS: Right.

Mr. LEARY: ...there was never any closet in any building that Mario lived
in. No, of course not. I think that's like when people through the
misogynistic label at "Rescue Me" and Peter and I sort of rankle under that
because...

GROSS: He's you're co-producer?

Mr. LEARY: ...and my co-writer, Peter Tolan, because you know, we always
say, `Well, I guess you should ask Susan Sarandon and Marisa and Gina, who's
coming on the show this year, you know, how they feel about this,' because we
get these great actresses to play these roles. You know, it's contained
within the element--it's very organic to the element of the show that
firefighters are considered homophobic or that they don't want a gay
firefighter in their midst. But, ultimately, it really doesn't matter.
There's a gay chief in the FDNY who's one of the most noted firefighters who
ever put on his bunker gear because he was a terrific firefighter. And as a
very young chief now, he's looked up to as, you know, a guy that the guys
really trust. Ultimately, they don't care. They really just want to make
sure that you can do the job and that you've got their back, and that's what
they really care about in the end.

I mean, it's one of the things when the FDNY is, you know, in the newspapers
or in the media when they start saying the FDNY is, you know, racially
unbalanced and prejudiced. And the truth is it's like playing in the NFL.
`Can you block that guy? You want to play middle linebacker?' You've got to
be able to block the guy. So that's all they care about. And the greatest
answer to the idea they might be prejudiced racially is do you think they
actually consider the color of the people in the building before they go in
and get them, you know? Tommy Gavin says in one episode this year, he goes
`I'd have to go back and count how many Hispanic, fat, ugly, black, yellow,
green people I've saved over the 20 years I've been in this department,
because I didn't keep track because all I wanted was to get whoever it was
out.' And I think that's the answer to the racial question of the FDNY is they
don't care, they don't really care.

GROSS: Denis Leary stars in the FX series "Rescue Me." He'll be back in the
second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with comic, writer and actor
Denis Leary. He's the co-creator, executive producer, co-writer and star of
the series "Rescue Me." It begins its fourth season next Wednesday on FX.
Leary plays a fireman who's constantly risking his life to save the lives of
strangers, but he's constantly letting down his friends and family, and his
personal life is out of control.

(Network audio difficulties)...letting you smoke in the New York studio.

Mr. LEARY: Yeah. I smoke everywhere.

GROSS: And I shouldn't be saying this, because now everybody's going to want
the privilege of smoking in there.

Mr. LEARY: I know. But I figured that there's been people on this show that
probably did the same thing. I don't smoke anywhere near as much as I used
to, and I'm actually getting ready to quit, but, yeah, I...

GROSS: Wait, wait, wait, you're getting ready to quit. What...

Mr. LEARY: I am getting ready to quit.

GROSS: What makes this a turning point?

Mr. LEARY: Well, I...

GROSS: Because I think people have been on you for a long time to stop
smoking for obvious reasons.

Mr. LEARY: Especially my daughter.

GROSS: Uh-huh.

Mr. LEARY: But I'm almost 50, and I play a lot of ice hockey and a lot of
street hockey. That's what I do to stay in shape. And I play with a lot of
young guys, and I haven't yet--I still am pretty fast for my age and able to
handle myself, but I don't want to lose that step. But also, my daughter
wants me to quit, and, you know, I'm at that age where I just think, `OK, you
know? Let's try it without it and see what happens.' You know what I mean?
It's one of the things that--50's a weird age, because even though I don't
feel it, I look and I go, `Wow, man, I can't believe I made it this far, and I
may have another 25 to go. So I better start thinking about what I want to
do.' You know what I mean?

GROSS: You're not used to looking ahead like that?

Mr. LEARY: I'm not, actually. I've always been a sort of, you know, "today"
type of guy. But now, you know, my kids are going to be up and out of the
house soon and going to college, and, you know, I like my job a lot, but you
know, once I come out of--when you're on a television show, it's kind of
accepted--and I know it's true--that people see you in that character for a
while. So I'm going to have to disappear from television for a while and
maybe do some movie parts or whatever. But there may be some downtime coming
up where I just have to direct and write or whatever--and produce--and I'm
trying to figure out--I just--because, for "Rescue Me," I have a stunt coming
up where I have to drive a motorcycle with no helmet on. So I've started
driving motorcross to get ready for this stunt sequence. And I was afraid of
it, but now I'm really in love with it.

And I just started riding horses. I've had them for years, but I've never
rode them. And I just started riding horses last weekend, and all of a sudden
these two things I always thought were too dangerous for me, I'm doing. And
I'm going to be 50. And I'm like, `You know what? Paul Newman's, you know,
racing cars and he's 82.' So I got a lot of time. I might have another 30
years here, and I want to do some dangerous, crazy stuff now that, you know, I
shouldn't be doing. I'm always, unfortunately, when people tell me not to do
something, it's the first thing on my list to do. It started with the nuns
telling us not to laugh and, you know, `Don't touch yourself.' Well, you know,
I tried both, I like them.

GROSS: Too late for that, huh?

Mr. LEARY: Too late for that, and now, you know, there's a certain, `You
shouldn't be doing this at 50.' Well, I'm going to try it. So riding that
horse this weekend was just exhilarating. And this motorcross was just
exhilarating, you know?

GROSS: So what's your plan for stopping smoking?

Mr. LEARY: I have these fake cigarettes that they're made of plastic and
they give you a nicotine fix, so you're not getting the smoke, you're getting
the nicotine. And then you wean yourself off. And I also have a hammer, I'm
just going to hit myself in the side of the head every time I want a
cigarette. I figure that'll probably work. But, then again, I'm Irish, so
you never know.

GROSS: What do you imagine is going to be the most difficult thing to do
unaccompanied by a cigarette?

Mr. LEARY: The hardest thing for me is having sex without a cigarette, you
know, during the actual act. No, I'm kidding. It's in the morning. I was
discussing this with my wife, because she quit. God love her, she's much
stronger than I am. And it's that first cup of coffee in the morning makes me
want to have a cigarette and read the paper. And so that's, I guess--if I get
rid of that one, I think it'll really--and then hit myself in the head with a
hammer and jump on a motorcycle. Yeah, that should do it. You know? You
would think. But who knows, you know? I mean, right now, I just--it would be
nice not to have to buy them, you know?

GROSS: Not that you need to save that much money.

Mr. LEARY: I have smoked so much over the years it may actually have an
effect on the American economy. So I'm just warning everybody, you know?
Warning everybody.

GROSS: Now, because there's a new baby in Tommy's family now, in your
character's family now.

Mr. LEARY: Yeah.

GROSS: And the baby is really colicky and crying all the time.

Mr. LEARY: Yeah.

GROSS: He--this is a little further down, so I'm giving something away, but I
think it's OK.

Mr. LEARY: Yeah.

GROSS: He takes a tip from a friend and is going to try putting some whiskey
in the baby's bottle. Just like a little drop in the hopes that it quiets him
down.

Mr. LEARY: Yes.

GROSS: Now, I've heard this before.

Mr. LEARY: Yes.

GROSS: Do you think that you were brought up that way?

Mr. LEARY: Well, the old Irish thing was--and I'm not saying--my wife and I
didn't give our kids whiskey, but, you know, we were very hands on with our
kids. My wife was a fantastic mother, and my son was born very, very, very
extremely premature. My wife actually wrote a terrific book about it called
"An Innocent, A Broad." Instead of "abroad" being one word, it's "A Broad,"
meaning her. And it was--you know, once he was through the tough times, you
know, we were very, very much of the mind which is the way we were both
raised, like put the kid on the floor and let the kid walk around. And all
the things that fly around the floor, the kid will become immune to.

People are so protective of their kids, like, they're, you know--it's like
that old thing of, `Well, how do they learn how to swim?' `Put them in the
water and stand close to them. They'll figure it out and you'll save them if
they have a problem.' You know, they're meant to bang their heads and fall
down and, you know, there's a reason when a kid falls down that he looks at
you first after he gets up, like he doesn't know whether to cry or not. It's
based on your reaction. If you panic, he'll panic.

So when I was growing up, you know, my mother tells us about it. They had
dirt floors in the houses when they were growing up, and they just, they
crawled around, you know? Basically, it's like puppies. If a puppy's in the
way, you don't just go like, `Ooh, little baby puppy, ooh.' You go, `Get the
hell out of the way.' Or let him try it and see if he gets hurt, he won't do
it again. If the puppy touches the stove, he won't do it a second time. So I
really believe in that kind of stuff. I think kids are too coddled in this
country. And that's why we have so many fat kids now, you know? Just bad
food and television.

GROSS: You have two teenage...

Mr. LEARY: Although I'm not telling fat kids not to watch my show. If
you're already fat and you're out there with a big bag of cheese puffs and you
want to watch "Rescue Me," by all means stay on the couch. Don't leave the
house unless you--your exercise should be to go to the store and buy the DVD
of "Rescue Me" and then come home and sit down and watch that. Stay fat.

GROSS: You have two teenage children.

Mr. LEARY: Yes.

GROSS: What is the most hypocritical thing that you are doing in terms of
trying to regulate their behavior that you wholeheartedly engaged in when you
were that age?

Mr. LEARY: Well, smoking. Yeah, smoking, bad.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. LEARY: Smoking not good. Swearing, taking the Lord's name--I feel like
I'm in the confessional now, Terry. Bless me, Terry, for I have sinned. I
have taken the Lord's name in vain. Yeah, I try to be--and my wife reminds me
quite often, you know, to be careful about--you know, I think I've been good
about getting over my rage. I don't fight taxi cab drivers anymore and try
traffic not to get into battles. And, you know, I do have a black Irish
temper, which I think I've come to control fairly well recently. And then I
just--I think we try to be honest with our kids. I mean, we're very, you
know, in terms of our political beliefs and what we believe in religiously,
you know, and family and stuff like that, we try to lead by example and make
them--certain things are expected, like good manners in general. I'm sure
there are huge faults that I just--big potholes I've left in the roads of my
children's childhood, but they seem like really good kids, and I think that
says a lot about my wife and, hopefully, me.

GROSS: My guest is Denis Leary. His series "Rescue Me" starts its fourth
season next Wednesday on FX. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH
AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guest is comic, writer, and actor Denis Leary. He co-created and
stars in the FX series "Rescue Me." He plays a firefighter.

Has it been like oddly therapeutic to write your character of Tommy in "Rescue
Me"? Because like he has so many of the extremes of the male ego that you've
written about and probably some of which you've had...

Mr. LEARY: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ...and probably some of which you tried to like undo. But like by
putting all of these extremes, you know, like the fighting, the...

Mr. LEARY: Yes.

GROSS: ...the drinking...

Mr. LEARY: Yes.

GROSS: ...the inability to have a like really enduring emotional
relationship...

Mr. LEARY: Yes.

GROSS: By putting that in him, can you stand back and say, `I see what the
problem is'?

Mr. LEARY: Well, it has helped me, definitely. He has helped me, certainly,
in terms of grief. I lost so many people in such a short time from the time
my cousin was killed in that fire through 9/11, and then one of my best
friends on the planet, Ted Demme, dropped dead...

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. LEARY: ...in January of 2002, right after 9/11. It helps in that
regard. It does--what's good is that the two guys I said that I based the
character on are like my same age, and we--it's--I was talking to one of them
this morning just about some very, very personal stuff and the two of us were
comparing notes on stupid things that we've done in relationships and talking
about our kids and raising our kids. The good thing is that, at this age,
we're starting to realize what idiots we have been and are potentially capable
of being again, and I think that's a thing that was never a part of my
father's generation of men. Like, you got--even me--I'm talking to this
really tough, great, New York City firefighter, and he's telling me
things--it's like I'm talking to my shrink--and he's telling me things that
are ringing bells in my head and I'm going, `Yeah, yeah, God, are you right.
We do need to be more emotionally available for the women in our lives and for
our daughters and for our sons,' and then I hear an alarm go off because he's
at the firehouse and he's like, `Ah, I'll call you back later,' and he's going
out on a call.

So there's hope that we, as men, we will actually--I can't believe I'm 50 and
just learning a lot of this stuff that I'm learning.' I look back and I think,
`What a moron I was.' I mean, what did I think?

GROSS: Give me an example. Give me an example of what a moron you were.

Mr. LEARY: Well, I mean. I'll give you an example. A year ago I got into a
fight with a cab driver. It was just ridiculous--downtown--which ended up
with nothing except him locking himself in the car and me trying to get in and
then me realizing that there are people with camera phones and that I've
achieved nothing, except if I wasn't in shape I'd probably have a heart
attack. And then I was late for work. So I drove away going, `Now, what did
I gain there? My face is red. My blood pressure's high. My heart's racing.
I'm angry as hell, and all I've got is a, you know, a bruise on my hand and
nothing else.' So that--I was 48 years old when that happened. So, you know,
here I am, 49 years old. Wow, did I learn a great lesson. I learned not to
beat up cab drivers. By the way, you know, living in New York, or London or
Rome, where are you not going to want to, you know, punch a cab driver? It
just makes no sense.

GROSS: What...

Mr. LEARY: You know, so, I hope that's true. And the same thing with--I
said this last night about, you know, when people are photographing you and
photographers--when you're famous, you know, I've found that instead of
throwing a can of beans--like Hugh Grant did--or kicking them or yelling
or--it makes no sense. It's actually better to just actually turn to them and
say, you know, `This is kind of ridiculous. Do you really need to keep taking
pictures of me as I walk?' And they kind of get shamed and they go, `You're
right. I don't need these pictures of you.' I mean, one of my favorite things
to say is, `I'm not Brad Pitt. Do you think you're photographing Brad Pitt?
These pictures are worth nothing. It's Denis Leary going to get a cup of
coffee. I'm guaranteeing you. Call WireImages. It's worth 25 cents,' and it
seems to work, so, you know.

GROSS: What was the fight with the taxi cab driver about?

Mr. LEARY: Oh. All right. So now you want to get to the core of the male
ego?

GROSS: Yes.

Mr. LEARY: I'm on my way to work. I'm driving. It's early, early in the
morning. I'm driving to the set of "Rescue Me." This is why they really don't
allow me to drive myself to work anymore, by the way. I'm driving myself to
work and there's nothing but green lights in front of us, because there's no
traffic. It's like, you know, it's 5:45 or something in the morning, and he's
strolling along at like 10 miles an hour. He's looking to find a fare, and I
beat the horn because we've got four green lights in front of us and he
short-brakes me. He puts the brakes on. I just miss hitting his back end.
Then he speeds up to the next--still a green light--the next block, and I come
up behind him and he short-brakes me again. So I squeal to a stop. And he
goes a third time.

Well, the third time--I'm not proud to say it, but it was--I think any jury of
my peers would be on my side, you know, like 12 Denis Learys--I hit him, I
tapped him from behind, and of course we both got out and he started screaming
in half-English, half-Pakistani because he's not an American citizen.
Actually, that's where I started. I was like, `Get your license and
registration.' That's when he panicked because he didn't have one because he's
not a citizen of this country. So he locks himself in the cab, and I'm
ranting and raving and ranting and raving and holding up my wallet and my
license and registration, you know, wearing a 62 truck "Rescue Me" shirt. You
know? Could I have more of an advertisement like, `I wonder who that is.' So,
and I went on for like 15, 20 minutes, and I gained--actually as a workout, I
probably lost, you know, a few calories, but that was it. I got to work. I
was pissed off. It made no sense.

GROSS: That's a long time, 15 to 20 minutes.

Mr. LEARY: I know! Out of life.

GROSS: Think of all the traffic you were holding up while you were doing it.

Mr. LEARY: And, yeah, you know, here I am sometimes in a bad movie, going
like, `I can't believe they wasted two hours of my life.' You know, this
is--it makes no sense. It's stupid. It's stupid! It's so stupid. And by
the way, thank God my kids weren't with me so they could see what an example
their dad is, yelling and screaming at a guy who can't even understand
English, you know. But I was in the right. See, there's the male ego part.
I was right because there were green lights and he was--it's stupid, stupid.

GROSS: Well, Denis Leary, I wish you good luck in being mature.

Mr. LEARY: All right.

GROSS: And it's great to talk with you. Thanks a lot.

Mr. LEARY: Thanks. Bye.

GROSS: Denis Leary co-created and stars in the FX series "Rescue Me." It
begins its fourth season next week on FX. The third season has just come out
on DVD.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Profile: A preview of Jarvis Cocker's new album "Jarvis"
TERRY GROSS, host:

We're going to squeeze in a tune here. I recorded an interview with
songwriter and singer Jarvis Cocker, which we'll feature soon. Here's a track
from Cocker's new CD called "Jarvis."

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. JARVIS COCKER: (singing) Well, you can stay all night if you want to
You can hang out with all of his friends
You can go and meet his mother and father
And you better make sure that's where it ends
'Cause baby, there's one thing that you gotta know
Let him read your palm and guess your sign
Let him take you home and treat you fine
But, baby,
Don't let him waste your time
Don't let him waste your time

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's Jarvis Cocker. Coming up, new music for ice cream trucks.
This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Michael Hearst, composer of the CD "Songs for Ice
Cream Trucks," on writing music for ice cream trucks
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

What does this music make you think about?

(Soundbite of "What's Your Favorite Flavor?")

GROSS: The composer hopes this music makes you think about ice cream. It's
from the new CD "Songs for Ice Cream Trucks," featuring new tunes inspired by
ice cream truck themes. Some of these new tunes are being played by ice cream
truck drivers. My guest is the composer and performer Michael Hearst. He's
best known as half of the duo One Ring Zero, which has set to music lyrics by
contemporary fiction writers such as Daniel Handler, Rick Moody and Dave
Eggers.

(Soundbite of "What's Your Favorite Flavor?")

GROSS: That's "What's Your Favorite Flavor?" from "Songs for Ice Cream
Trucks," composed and performed by guest, Michael Hearst.

Michael, welcome back to FRESH AIR.

Mr. MICHAEL HEARST: Thanks, Terry. Glad to be here.

GROSS: So what were the principles that you were keeping in mind to make
music on the CD ice cream truck kind of music?

Mr. HEARST: Well, you know, I knew I wanted to kind of stick with the
quality that traditional ice cream trucks--you know, the sound, the chime-y,
high-endy sort of sounds that ice cream trucks use. I wanted to sort of stick
with that and not go too off the deep end into you know punk rock, heavy metal
or whatever. So I used a lot of glockenspiel and high-endy things, but you
know, as this project kind of developed and I was starting to get feedback
from various ice cream truck drivers, I started, you know, hearing what they
wanted, and a lot of what they were asking fro was melodies that, you
know--it's funny, because you think of people who get annoyed by, you
know--everybody seems to have some complaints about ice cream truck music for
the most part--maybe that's not true, but more so than the people who are
hearing the trucks pass by, the drivers are getting frustrated with hearing
these same songs over and over again. So, you know, I started to get a lot of
feedback from these people.

GROSS: So what did they want?

Mr. HEARST: Most of them wanted timeless melodies, I guess, was one thing I
heard, and stuff that wouldn't be repeated over and over again, to the point
where it would drive them insane. You know, I think it's too easy to take a
melody and just loop it continuously, and so I kind of worked with trying to
keep the songs somewhat simple but also, I guess, making them so that even if
they do repeat, something changes with each repeat. I don't think there's a
song on the entire album that, in the repeat, is the exact same. You know,
something else comes in, whether it's a theremin or a glockenspiel or voices.
You know, even sometimes the key changes. I don't know if there's any ice
cream truck songs out there with key changes happening, but that's something I
did throw in.

GROSS: Should we listen to "Moose Track Shake?" Is this one of the ones that
you wrote with real ice cream truck drivers in mind?

Mr. HEARST: It was. In this one, I, you know, wanted to be a little more
rhythmic, and I would say this one maybe is a little more repetitive, but I
felt like it worked nicely from--or at least I hope it works nicely from a
truck, but I did add a lot more percussion on this one and have--it's a kind
of circus-y melody. And I guess obviously ice cream trucks and circus
melodies have something in common.

GROSS: Well, why don't we hear it? This is another track from Michael
Hearst's new album "Songs for Ice Cream Trucks."

(Soundbite of "Moose Track Shake")

GROSS: That's "Moose Track Shake," composed by Michael Hearst for his new CD
"Songs for Ice Cream Trucks," and, Michael, last time you were on our show we
talked about all the unusual instruments that you use. What are you using on
this?

Mr. HEARST: I'm still using all kinds of ridiculous instruments. One of the
sounds that you're hearing in that particular song is an invention by a friend
of mine. His name's Dan Steinberg. He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia. And he
invented this crazy percussion toy called the space crickets, and they're kind
of like--it looks like a giant diaper pin with two metal balls on the end,
kind of like those old office toys that you used to see that, you know, you'd
drop a ball and they'd hit each other and knock the other direction. But you
basically squeeze these things together and you get this strange sound.

(Soundbite of space crickets)

Mr. HEARST: There's actually, I think there's a picture of it up on the Web
site. But they're great. I hope they take off and take over the world.

GROSS: Now, you brought your glockenspiel with you.

Mr. HEARST: I did.

GROSS: Now, is it a glock that we hear in a lot of those Mister Softee kind
of jingles or is it something else that just sounds like it?

Mr. HEARST: It's not. The problem with a lot of ice cream trucks--and maybe
it's not a problem--it's a problem as far as I'm concerned. A lot of ice
cream trucks are using a kind of archaic system for their music. You know,
they're usually either using, essentially, an elaborate music box, you know,
these actual little reeds that are plucked and then amplified through a
speaker, or they have these little electronic boxes that have a selection of,
you know, up to eight songs that they're kind of stuck with. But, you know,
it is 2007 and people have iPods and CD players now and can just as easily
hook those up to speakers. That said, you know, the closest thing I could get
without actually creating a music box for every single song on the record,
which would have been a fabulous idea if I could have done that, is a
glockenspiel. It sounds very Chinese, like a music box.

(Soundbite of glockenspiel)

Mr. HEARST: That's the glockenspiel.

GROSS: Play one of the melodies that you wrote for glockenspiel.

Mr. HEARST: Sure. This is the opening melody from the song "What's Your
Favorite Flavor?"

(Soundbite of glockenspiel-only version of "What's Your Favorite Flavor?")

GROSS: Now, what are some of the tunes that you remember growing up with from
the ice cream truck?

Mr. HEARST: The one that I heard the most was probably "Pop Goes the
Weasel." You know, there's this weird parallel between kind of nursery rhymes
and these simple little melodies in ice cream trucks, which of course makes
sense because of the whole, you know, trying to market towards children. Yet,
you know, I kind of got, with this project, I got a little frustrated with all
these really simple melodies that ice cream trucks were using and thought,
`Why not throw in some diminished chords and some more elaborate sort of
melodies?' But that was one the one I heard a lot, growing up in Virginia
Beach, at least.

GROSS: Some of your ice cream truck music sounds like it should almost be for
a carousel. It just sounds very circus-y, and several of the songs are in
three-quarter time and there's an oom-pah-pah theme going on there...

Mr. HEARST: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Why is that?

Mr. HEARST: Well, you know, my regular band, One Ring Zero, I think, you
know, and my music in general, even before One Ring Zero, I've always been
heavily influenced by circus-y music. Even as a child, I remember sitting at
my father's piano and banging out--I had a song called the "Animal Song" I
wrote when I was like nine years old. It was just an oom-pah song that had
this silly circus melody. And for some reason, I've always been drawn to
that, whether it's--it might have something to do with the fact that I've
always been kind of scared of clowns in the circus. I have no idea. That's
something for psychoanalysis. But, you know, and that kind of, as I got older
and I got more interested in Klezmer music and Eastern European music and was
very influenced by...(unintelligible)...and Nina Rota and Tom Waits and Danny
Elfman and all these people and, you know, there's definitely a similarity
between a lot of ethnic music, circus musics, and it certainly comes out in
ice cream truck music

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. HEARST: Thanks, Terry.

GROSS: Michael Hearst composed the songs and plays all the instruments on the
new CD, "Songs for Ice Cream Trucks."

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. HEARST: (Singing) It's cold and it's sweet,
A tasty treat
Ice cream's here to stay
You should come and get some now
Before I drive away

Ice cream's for adults and kids,
And all who sing along
Get it while I'm on your street
'Cause soon I will be gone

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: You can download podcasts of FRESH AIR on our Web site,
freshair.npr.org.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.