Rock 'n' roll never forgets, but times change.

Back in his wild days as lead singer of the Headstones, Hugh Dillon was all about the music, and any other method of creative expression never crossed his mind. And even if it did - some memories remain hazy - acting was at the very bottom of his list.

"I never really liked actors or acting back then," says Dillon with a smile and a shrug. "It was acting, you know? I wasn't great at working with others or the group collaboration. At the time, all I could handle was making music with four other people."

That was then, this is now. The transition of Hugh Dillon from rock 'n' roll animal to respected TV thespian has come full circle of late.

A few days after wrapping his first season as lead character on the CTV series Flashpoint, Dillon learned yesterday that he had received a Gemini Award nomination for best performance by an actor in a continuing leading role for his performance in the 2007 miniseries Durham County.

Dillon received glowing reviews for his work in Durham County, which arrives on DVD on Sept. 9.

He has only effusive praise for the show's female creative team, particularly writer Laurie Finstad Knizhnik and directors Holly Dale and Adrienne Mitchell, each of whom likewise received Gemini nods.

"Working with these women changed my life," says Dillon, 45.

"Coming from the rock 'n' roll genre, I was used to this real guy's mentality; Durham County put me in this world run by these powerful, intellectual women with something to say. I'm forever indebted to them."

The trademark Dillon intensity is evident in his portrayal of sniper Ed Lane on Flashpoint - already a ratings hit on CBS and CTV and renewed by CTV for a second season (CBS has yet to confirm its renewal) - though both roles pale in comparison to his rock-star days.

The Headstones roared out of Dillon's Kingston hometown in the late eighties, and never apologized for the noise.

As front man of one of the hardest-rocking bands to ever come out of this country, Dillon was the original angry young man. Any club patron who attended a Headstones show during the group's heyday likely came away with bruises, or a burn from a cigarette thrown into the crowd by the lead singer. Those were different times.

"There was anger there, but our music was of a time and a place," Dillon says reflectively.

"There was so much mediocrity in music at the time. Nirvana had just come out. But I honestly never thought about getting a record deal or the money. We didn't care if we played to nine or 10 people. All our spare money went to a rehearsal space, and beer.... And the accoutrements."

The "accoutrements" were almost the end of Dillon. Diving headlong into the rock lifestyle, he spent nearly a decade battling his addictions to alcohol and heroin.

"As a young man, I never thought I'd make it past 30," he says. "I wanted the Jim Morrison live-fast-die-young mentality."

Dillon eventually exorcised his substance demons, with assistance from his wife, Midori Fujiwara, and five trips to rehab. His entrance into the acting world came from renegade Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald, who cast the rocker as a support player in the 1995 indie feature Dance Me Outside, and one year later in the more substantial, and fitting, character of self-absorbed singer Joe Dick in the 1996 feature Hard Core Logo.

"It was a role I knew something about, obviously," he says. "Bruce showed me how to find a way into acting as an art form and then I gradually got into it," Dillon says.

Clear-eyed and cleanly shorn, Dillon begins shooting the second season of Durham County in Montreal next week. Acting now feels natural, but he's still making music with his new band, the Hugh Dillon Redemption Choir. Some old habits are good to hang onto. "Writing songs is the one thing I can do that has no pretension whatsoever," he says. "I can just pick up the guitar and stop thinking about petty things and the words just come. Music is still the most honest thing I can make."