Alexander Orange Drink is the solo moniker for Alex Zarou Levine, lead singer & songwriter of The So So Glos. He was born in Brooklyn, NY with the rare and life-threatening metabolic disorder called Homocystinuria, and “Orange Drink” is a slang term for the medication he has taken daily since infancy. Alexander is known for his “streetwise and irreverent lyrics,” which have drawn comparisons from William Wordsworth to the Beastie Boys. Look for live dates, soon to be announced by Alexander Orange Drink.

On his debut solo album, Babel On (out Friday, September 28 through Kobalt/AWAL), Alexander Orange Drinks’s signature “acerbic wordplay” meets electronic compositions as well as somber acoustic arrangements that allude to personal heartbreak and political turmoil. Babel On is a hodgepodge of sounds and styles that feels like a solitary strut through Alexander’s brain. It was produced by him along with Adam Reich in the year when The So So Glos were on hiatus and Shea Stadium was shut down. The album title, a reference to the biblical Tower Of Babel, evokes a culture lost in a twenty-four hour news cycle while a subversive narrator guides the listener through an interior dystopian landscape. Babel On comes just in time for the rise of global fascism, toward the end of a son of an American’s youth, in the midst of strange and uncertain times.

About Alexander Orange Drink previous band the So So Glos

by Jon O’Brien

Influenced by the punk energy of the Clash, the garage rock of the Stooges, and the ’60s pop of the Kinks, the So So Glos are a politically charged punk outfit from Brooklyn, New York. Brothers Alex (lead vocals, bass) and Ryan Levine (guitar) and stepbrother Zach Staggers (drums) had played in bands together from a young age — early incarnations included SPITT, Urban Eyze, and Every Other Weekend — but only began touring when they recruited guitarist Matt Elkin in 2007, the same year they released their self-titled debut album. Frustrated by the lack of under-21 venues in their hometown, in 2008 they joined with D.I.Y. show promoter Todd P to co-found an all-ages venue, the Market Hotel, before touring in support of Titus Andronicus and Santigold in the U.S. and the Virgins and …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead in the U.K. A year later, they released their Tourism/Terrorism EP, and followed it with another EP, Low Back Chain Shift, in 2010. That same year, the Market Hotel was shut down and they opened up a new venue for local D.I.Y. punks at the appropriately named Shea Stadium, which went on to expand beyond the boroughs and attract bands from all over the country. Their second long-player, the breakthrough Blowout, was released in 2013 and merited inclusion in a number of year-end lists by major publications. In the process of writing the follow-up, the So So Glos nearly imploded, but they managed to record Kamikaze, their third LP, which was released in 2016.