Fuckin’ Z

Dodger Stadium, day after Memorial Day. The security and publicity folks are a little keyed up: They‘ve just heard Zakk Wylde torture his electric guitar through the sound check for his imminent rendition of the national anthem. How was the rehearsal? ”Definitely . . . different,“ says a straw-hatted security watchdog. Eyes to the sky. Thoughtful.

Not everyone in the Dodgers organization has acclimated to the changes since Rupert Murdoch bought the team. One thing they know: Under the O’Malley dynasty, when it came to anthem performers, Mr. Wylde would have been, let‘s say, a dark horse.

New Jersey axman Wylde (born Phillip Wielandt) is not what most would consider family fare. He first made the society pages in 1987 with the band of Ozzy Osbourne, the dove-devouring former singer of Black Sabbath. Today’s patriotic solo amounts to a warm-up for a punishing five-month world excursion Wylde calls the Penchant for Violence Tour. The band he‘s led for the last couple of years is named Black Label Society, a reference to its members’ zealous devotion to strong beverages. Oh say, can you see?

The group hatched as a studio duo -- Wylde and a drummer named Philth. According to Wylde, who played guitar, bass and occasional piano on their recordings, the personnel limitation was a practical decision. ”The way I look at it, you get a case of beer, two guys, that‘s 12 beers each,“ he says several weeks before the game, sucking down pints at Barney’s Beanery on Palm Sunday afternoon. ”You bring a whole bunch of motherfuckers in, now you gotta start sharin‘ beers. Fuck that. If I wasn’t stiff, I‘d end up killin’ about half the fuckin‘ band off.“

Pilsner enthusiast though he may be, Wylde is willing to endure realistic constraints, such as Dodger Stadium’s stoppering of the beer spigots in the seventh inning. ”You cop a good buzz by the seventh, then you have a couple coffees, you got three innings to fuckin‘ chill out, then you go home. Then when you get back to the house, you start pounding again. But you can’t be drivin‘ all fucked up. The warrior walks away to drink another day.“

Today, before he pays his respects to Old Glory, Wylde is just finishing off his second 14-ounce brew; you can tell it’s number two because, with true beer-drinker methodology, he stacks the new cup inside the old one to keep track. The stadium organist, having reflected upon an appropriate Wylde introduction, warms up the crowd with ”Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.“ PA announcement: ”Ladies and gentlemen, performing our national anthem -- Zakk Wylde!“ Guitar strapped on, Wylde strides out from behind the center-field fence, plugs in and strikes a pose in front of his four Marshall stacks. Though his loyalties really lie with the Yankees, he‘s wearing a Dodgers jersey for the occasion. His arms still bear the fake chain tattoos that he’s sported while acting in the Mark Wahlberg--Jennifer Aniston film Rock God, in which he plays, basically, himself.

Wylde puts plectrum to strings and lives up to his name. The distorted steel strains of ”The Star-Spangled Banner“ peal out and bounce around the stands, mightily embellished but quite recognizable, with a touch or two borrowed from Jimi Hendrix‘s Woodstock version. It’s loud, it‘s crazed, it’s painful. But it‘s respectful. Wylde finishes on a soaring chord and unplugs.

The stadium, only a quarter full at this point, buzzes lightly for a few seconds, then surges into a steady round of applause. Fans nod with approval or look at each other like, ”Did you hear what I heard?“ Nobody boos.

The obligatory jeers have to wait for former Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza as he’s announced in the lineup of the visiting New York Mets. The hometowners don‘t know that Piazza, a longtime metal fan, was responsible for suggesting that Wylde make himself available for the nat-anth gig. But the moment for patriotism has now passed. It’s time for competition.

Wylde, though, as he goes through his third or fourth beer in his box seat, is still thinking about the flag. He wasn‘t able to do his thing on Memorial Day (”If you’re gonna do the anthem, that‘s the day to do it on“), had to settle for the day after. Still, close enough. The occasion means something extra to Wylde, whose 80-year-old father, one of the Allied liberators of Auschwitz, used to tell him about those harrowing days and his other war experiences. ”He said there was ash everywhere from burning bodies,“ says Wylde. ”He was under a tank when a fuckin’ grenade went off, and both he and his buddy got blown to shit. His bud died, and my dad got all fucked up too. He‘s got a steel plate in his leg.“

Now, that’s heavy metal.

After his demon days with Ozzy, with whom he made four albums between 1987 and 1995, Wylde released a couple of eclectic CDs -- solo and with Pride & Glory -- before locking into focus with Black Label Society. And when Zakk Wylde focuses, he focuses.