The Liverhearts were one of the first bands approached for Burn to Shine. For more than five years, Matt Weaver, Jason Beebe and Matt Glagola have played their style of angular rock around Atlanta. Their sound, in the vein of bands with idiosyncratic structures, unusual time signatures and rhythms (think Unwound), finds some inspiration from their day jobs – Weaver and Glagola are both architects, further making them a natural choice for the DVD series.
Also, their 2003 split 7” with the Orphins spawned the name of Rob’s House Records, the Atlanta label which has since gone on to release work by seven bands that performed during Burn to Shine.
Dry Ink spoke with guitarist and vocalist Matt Weaver and bassist Jason Beebe shortly after their performance, the second overall, for Burn to Shine.

Dry Ink: So what was the experience like?

Matt Weaver: Hot, sweaty. I messed up. I didn’t play so well during the sound check.

Jason Beebe: Then it came together.

MW: I think we loosened up forcibly by sweat, and by the last take we nailed it, I think.

DI: How did you get involved?

MW: We were asked a long time ago… we were always like ‘Hell yeah, we’ll do that.’

DI: What song did you play today?

MW: A song called “Ornament.” The lyrics are based on the Adolph Loos manifesto called Ornament and Crime, and… We shortened it to “Ornament.”

DI: So is it fair to say you have an architectural influence, if there is such a thing?

MW: The lyrics are pretty much architectural. Matt and I are architects. It’s something we decided a while ago; not to write songs about girls and stuff like that. We write about what we know.

DI: You don’t know about girls?

MW: Yeah, we know about girls. If Matt Drums were here, he would say you could make an architectural analogy about any of the bands here at Burn to Shine. There’s composition, there’s structure, there’s rhythm. All those things… so yeah, the music isn’t necessarily architectural, but I guess the lyrical content is about things such as the built environment, how we can be responsible with the things we build.

DI: So you guys are a nice fit, considering the Burn to Shine premise.

JB: When we first saw the videos, we were like, that would be awesome if it came to Atlanta. We’d be perfect.

MW: Absolutely, and I might be babbling at this point, but with the sustainability thing, a lot of people have written how one of the worst things you can do is build new buildings, and the best you can do is take a building that’s old and re-inhabit it and make it better and make it last. The problem is we don’t build things to last anymore; this house that’s going to get destroyed wasn’t built that great. It’s cool to be involved with this, and I hope that it’s eye opening that in every city that there’s this development happening and here are these DVDs showing the condition of, homes usually, being torn down in most cases for very developer-driven reasons.

DI: How long have you been together?

JB: Around five years, I’ve known Matt about 10 years. We met at (Georgia) Tech.

MW: A friend of a friend introduced me to Matt the drummer, whom we affectionately call Matt Drums, and it just so happened that he’s a total badass, and liked what we were doing, so…

DI: How many songs have you written and recorded?

JB: 19 songs.

MW: We’ve recorded many things.

JB: But they’re just sitting around… We’d like to have something that sounds like us to come out soon.

DI: Allright, the Liverhearts… how’d the name come about?

JB: Well, we were at Vietnamese restaurant called Pho 69 off Buford Highway, and I had this idea that, well, I don’t know if I still believe this, but if you don’t like a certain type of food, then you at least should learn to appreciate it.

MW: Because somebody eats it.

JB: Yeah, because somebody eats it. So I went on this mission. I didn’t like olives, but people like olives, so I had to find out why people liked olives.

DI: And what did you find out?

JB: They’re good. Olives are good… But liver, I had to classify it as a not-food. For instance, if you eat a bear liver, your skin will fall off and you’ll die. If you eat a cow liver, the type of liver that most people eat, it has enough Vitamin A to be quantified as poison.

DI: What about hearts?

JB: Well, hold on I’m getting to that, we called people who eat liver Liverpeople…

MW: And I said hearts should be included, so those who eat those things would be called Liverhearts.

JB: Yeah. Basically we had to come up with a name real fast.

MW: We booked a show before we had songs, a drummer, a name; so we had to get all of those things really quick, and um… We managed. We pulled it off. It was either that or the Serious Bears. Those were our two choices.

JB: I think it worked out, but I don’t know… you know, names. Whatever.

MW: It’s great though, because if you type in Liverhearts in Google, there’s not much that comes up.

JB: Actually one of things that comes up is a recipe. Our friend Rob sent it to us. Somebody actually has a recipe called liverhearts.

DI: That’s disgusting.

JB: In Japan, you can order a little frog heart, still beating.

DI: What’s next for you guys?

MW: We record a lot in Matt’s basement, we recorded a lot of the Rob’s House stuff in Matt’s basement, so we’re in a rush to record what we have in his basement in hopes that either we put it out or somebody else puts it out. It should be noted that we’ve been playing the same set for a long time, but we’re breaking out of that. Right now.

William Inman is editor of Dry Ink. Write to him at william@dryinkmag.com