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If you've seen his films or his work with the popular Canadian rock group the Headstones - and Edmonton fans should've had ample opportunity over the last eight years - you'll realize that the singer is simply doing a take on his own troubled past. He plays it up for fans as a spitting, cursing, snarling, insulting, menacing thug who looks as though he could punch someone in the nose given the slightest provocation. It's a calculated self-parody.
"I've never really analysed it that far," Dillon says. "I just think there's a hell of a lot of humour involved."
In fact, it may come as a surprise that in the band's entire career, he has only punched someone once.
"I was totally justified," he recalls a gig in Ontario about six years ago. Some "drunken f---ing fat guy" repeatedly threw beer at him. The singer threatened the oaf with fisticuffs if he didn't cease this chicanery, but the guy kept doing it. After the fourth faceful of beer, Dillon jumped over the rail and "smoked" the guy in the head. "I had to. I made the f---ing threat."
In real life, Hugh Dillon is a gentleman, an accomplished writer, musician and actor who loves attending the ballet and discussing the works of Oscar Wilde. Well, not quite, but he's made quite a career of playing up his tough-guy image. Critics may charge that he's just playing himself in gritty films like Hard Core Logo (as a hard-boiled rock singer who ends up killing himself) and Dance Me Outside (as a hard-boiled murderer) or the upcoming HBO movie Lone Hero (as a hard-boiled biker bad guy; he researched the role by hanging out with bikers). It looks like Dillon is getting typecast - as himself.
So what, he says. "I did a great job, if that's the way they look at it ... People say that Tom Cruise plays himself in every movie. I've got an agent now. I wouldn't have had an agent unless people see that I can create characters."
The silver screen beckons, but, for now, the band still takes priority. Headstones plays in town yet again tomorrow night, at Nashville's, supporting their new best-of album, Greatest Fits. Dillon is especially proud of the two new songs - as required on all greatest hits album by dint of record company contract - Blowtorch and Come On. They are "really strong rock 'n' roll songs, flawless, I might add," he says. "There was just no calculation. They were just beautiful inspiration and they came together well and they didn't need to be toyed with or second-guessed."
Currently working with comedian Darren Frost, perhaps best known for his role as a crime-fighting bottle of mouthwash, the Headstones are continuing to look for different ways to use humour. It's become crucial to the band's ability to thrive - and never wear out their welcome - in Canada.
"It's really what makes the difference in life," Dillon says. "We laugh our heads off and I think that's the difference between plotting the trajectory of your career and taking yourself so seriously that you don't give a s--- about the fans or the gigs and you're just looking at the bizarre big picture that's not reality. If you just keep a sense of humour, you won't have these ridiculous heightened expectations."
As for the possibility that Hugh Dillon is channelling the spirit of Sid Vicious, "Most people are there because they love the tunes, and we're a great live band. We're there to rock. The other part is just image, for lack of a better word. That's it."