In the Britney era, can a man who looks like this, like Pigpen on a steroid diet, really hit it big? Sure. When your debut album rocks harder and louder than any CD in years, you can look however you want. “I Get Wet” is the kind of disc where you never get past track seven because you’re just too winded. Or, as the author himself puts it: “This is the sound of being alive.”

Or electrocuted. W.K., 23, who landed next week’s “Saturday Night Live” gig before “I Get Wet” was even released, is cut from the same cloth as metal gods Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister, only he’s got twice the ear for melody and none of the taste for leotards. True, yes, his lyrics are–how to put this gently?–dumb. (Sample chorus: “Let’s get a party going/Now it’s time to party/And we’ll party hard/Party hard.”) But you’ll get no argument from W.K.; he was just looking for hard consonants to spit out. “I wasn’t writing the songs to say something,” he explains. “It wasn’t, you know, my poem, and now here’s the soundtrack.” Besides, the music is the key ingredient. Whereas most pop songs mix as many as 48 tracks, W.K. (that’s Wilkes-Krier, his parents’ surnames) uses 90. As a result, “I Get Wet” is spacious and booming like a sold-out stadium show. Each song is an anthem: there’s the youth anthem (MTV staple “Party Hard”), the city anthem (“I Love NYC”) and the macabre “Ready to Die,” a psych-up anthem for the undead.

Now comes the part where we try to convince you this man is actually pretty normal. There is some evidence at lunch. He swaps favorite Onion headlines, drinks his spicy ginger ale through a straw and is unfailingly polite to the waitress. He even lays his napkin on his lap, as if the sorry state of his jeans has escaped his notice. But then talk turns to his music and W.K. asks if we might continue in his hotel room. “It’s a little loud in here, don’t you think?” he says. There are six people in the diner. “Sure,” you say.

“I feel like this music has chosen me to deliver it,” he begins. His tone of voice has changed. He is speaking quickly and passionately. “It was maybe even skeptical of me at first. But then I worked really hard for it and it was impressed by me.” Go back through that quote, capitalize every “it” and suddenly you’ve got an evangelist on your hands. Then W.K., who’s fighting a cold, grabs a Kleenex and begins talking and blowing at the same time. “So now I have this solid job to do. And all I’m trying to do now”–HONK!–“is not”–HONK!–“f–k that up.” HOOOONK! See? Perfectly normal.

Blame his parents for that. Now there’s a wacky pair. Dad is–ready for this?–a law professor at the University of Michigan. He writes journal articles with titles like “Deterrence and Distribution in the Law of Takings.” His mother is, according to her son, “the world’s greatest mom.” W.K. moved to New York after high school and at one point sold gumball machines on Wall Street. But all along, he remained close to his folks. He tells a charming story about going home three years ago and sharing a song he recorded. “We sat there and listened. Then Dad says, ‘I thought you didn’t make noise music anymore?’ I was crushed,” W.K. says, laughing. “He felt really bad, so later on he listened to it again and said to me, ‘Andrew, I’ve decided it’s very joyous’.” Andrew, so have we.