It’s the day before the much-anticipated second season premiere of Flashpoint, and the show’s star, Hugh Dillon, is squatting and squinting in front of the jukebox at Allen’s on the Danforth. “I’m getting too old to read the song titles,” he says jokingly before punching in Booker T and the MG’s “Green Onions” and then the Stones’ “Satisfaction.” Dillon is the former front man of the seminal ’90s rock band The Headstones. When I ask whether he’s looking for one of his own songs, he grins—a 1,000-watt smile that, with his shaved skull, transforms him into a leaner, meaner, younger Bruce Willis—but doesn’t answer.

Satisfaction is precisely what Dillon exudes these days. And why not? Flashpoint’s success is far from the norm in Canadian television, and certainly not what the 45-year-old performer was expecting after the turbulence that has characterized his career thus far. The one-hour drama, which chronicles the exploits of a special response unit, debuted last summer on CTV and CBS simultaneously (the first show set in Canada to do so) to a combined North American audience of almost 10 million. It was initially the perceived beneficiary of good timing; CBS picked up Flashpoint following the void in scripted drama created by the American writers’ strike. But the show quickly proved itself, winning a committed viewership and accolades on both sides of the border, a phenomenon not witnessed since Paul Gross first donned Mountie red for Due South in 1994. Then, while basking in the kind of blockbuster success that most television actors can only dream of, Dillon received a Gemini nod for his role in the Movie Network’s Durham County, a creepy psycho­drama (think American Beauty remade by David Lynch) that just wrapped its second season. The onslaught of critical and commercial success prompted John Doyle, The Globe and Mail’s notoriously cranky TV critic, to go so far as to call Dillon “probably Canada’s next great acting star.”

It’s been two decades since Dillon first entered the public consciousness, and he’s obviously mellowed with age (the old Dillon might have clocked me for that crack back at the jukebox). The Headstones’ signature in-your-face, balls-to-the-wall bravado was largely his doing, and not unrelated to a serious heroin and booze habit. He has since kicked it, with repeat rehab visits six years ago (we’re in an Irish pub, but the Irishman’s drinking cappuccino) and the support of his wife, Midori Fujiwara. Dwelling on those dark days, he says with exasperation, is “like talking about something I did in high school.” Though a hellraising youth does have its advantages: “I’m fucking lucky I’ve had the past I’ve had, ’cause I have a lot to draw on.” Dillon scored his first big acting break in Bruce McDonald’s 1996 cult hit Hard Core Logo playing a version of his wild, narcissistic Headstones self. “The only difference between acting and music,” he says, “is that with acting, you don’t have a bar to serve you drinks before you perform.”

As Flashpoint’s lead sniper, Ed Lane, he is as focused and quietly intense as Dillon the rock star was belligerent. Each episode of the show is tightly plotted, starting with an instantly enthralling crisis situation—the series premiere featured a midday hostage taking outside Commerce Court—followed by a rapid rewinding to the events that led up to that titular moment. Lane and the rest of the SRU are called in, and a wisecracking camaraderie is established; the drama escalates until we’re back at the edge-of-your-seat flashpoint that kicked off the show. In the final moments, the team defuses the crisis, with varying degrees of success, and a montage depicts the emotional fallout, complete with a soft-rock ballad on the soundtrack.

It’s a formula, sure, but given the success of such heavily templated series as Law & Order and CSI, it’s an enduringly popular one. And despite the predictability of the format, Flashpoint largely works: the storylines are sharp and fresh, the subject matter seemingly plucked from the CP24 news feed (the Commerce Court episode was loosely based on the 2004 hostage taking at Union Station). Dillon has also worked hard to ensure the authenticity of his onscreen sharpshooter; he’s spent many hours with Toronto’s emergency task force, going on ride-alongs and hanging out at the shooting range. When Ed Lane has a target in his sights, he says calmly, chillingly, “I have the solution.” And you believe him.

Like Gary Oldman, his mercurial idol, Dillon relishes complex characters that require a nuanced performance. In Durham County, his Detective Mike Sweeney, a damaged, sensitive family man, is more than just the good-guy foil for the serial killer across the street (played with toxic delight by Justin Louis, who edged out his co-star for the 2008 lead actor Gemini).

While navigating his new small-screen stardom, Dillon has held fast to his first love (“Music is what I’m naturally drawn to”). Besides recording tracks for both Flashpoint and Durham County, he recently signed a deal for a solo album and has even hinted at a possible Headstones reunion.

In the annals of entertainment history, the list of musicians turned thespians is long, though few would call it illustrious—for every Mark Wahlberg, there’s a Vanilla Ice, for every Frank Sinatra, a Billy Ray Cyrus. With two successful and totally dissimilar cop shows, Dillon has defied those odds, and he’s done so by tapping into our current schizophrenic televisual appetite. While the intricate Durham County swells with the kind of strange sexual repression that’s become a national hallmark (thank you, Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg), Flashpoint exists in a kind of inter-zone, neither explicitly Canadian nor American. An aria of pure adrenalin, its allegiance is only to TV.

The same goes for Dillon. “I’m a working actor,” he says, maybe still a little surprised by the fact, but completely proud of it. He has the solution.