Student body, meet Christopher’s Liver.

Recent graduates of the University, Christopher Ingham and longtime friend Laura Swindall, officially formed the indie-pop duo in 2006, when the two played at a Food Not Bombs benefit concert.

With a voice recorder strapped to his body with masking tape, lead singer Ingham chatted about his band’s sound as he worked at Hot Corner Coffee shop Thursday night.

“It’s rough pop, kind of like ’80s D.C. music on a lot of sugar,” he said. “It’s inspired by the punk aesthetic but a little more cutesy.”

Ingham also told the story behind the band’s peculiar name.

“When I was 18 years old, I was walking in downtown Augusta, Ga., drinking forties with my friend. I asked him how much he drank a day and he said three to four. And I said, ‘Man, you have a heroic liver,’” he said.

Ingham formed the punk band Heroic Livers out of that phrase, but eventually grew tired of the aggressive sound.

He began Christopher’s Liver as a solo project, later teaming up with drummer Swindall.

“['Liver's] just been a constant moniker for me, just kind of identifying how we cope with our troubles,” Ingham said.

“Some people take up alcohol and other forms of substance abuse. I’ve taken up music as a form of music therapy.”

For Ingham, the most rewarding part of playing music is “having people respond to it and making it their own.”

That said, the band isn’t nursing wild dreams of super rock-star status.

With a genuine stick-it-to-the-man mentality, the duo produces and releases all their music without the help of a record label.

“We try our best to not engage in normative business practices with music,” Ingham said. “We fund everything ourselves, print all the CDs ourselves, do all the artwork ourselves.”

It’s a matter of integrity for Christopher’s Liver.

“You really have to compromise yourself as an artist once other people have their hand in it. Because their hand is not only in your pocket but also in your heart,” Ingham said.

“You don’t have to have huge record labels to disseminate your music, and it doesn’t guarantee that people are going to respond to it.”

Therefore, the band doesn’t measure artistic success by amount of CDs sold or money made.

“It should be measured in communicability across social barriers, be it race, class, creed, color, sexual orientation,” Ingham said. “Music should be cheap or free.”

Accordingly, all of Christopher’s Liver’s albums are sold for $3 or $4 at each show.

“Once you cut out the middleman in the CD-making process, it’s amazing to see how cheap it really is, especially if you’re recording yourself,” Ingham said.

“So many bands take themselves too seriously in this town trying to make it big. If you empower yourself and say, ‘I believe in my own aesthetic choices,’ you can make a beautiful cohesive record for very little money.”

Though their grassroots approach to distribution may not be a ticket to stardom, it’s the most satisfying method for the band.

“Buy a spool of about 100 CD-Rs, have a computer at your disposal, and a Sharpie, and the world is yours,” Ingham said.