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Given the personal depth of his writing, I'm curious whether he's a spiritual person. Surprised by the question, he pauses for a moment, considering, Hmm, I don't know... he says, mulling a response, I think spirituality is a way for people to address pain in themselves; to not feel like they're the only ones. An awareness of how the things we do affects everything around us. And yeah, I'm affected by the things that go on around me...that awareness. I think all artists are filters in that way, really. They take what is going on and interpret it; they shape it into what they see.

His lyrics possess a very literate sensibility. With references and even a couple of homages to some of the greatest classic writers, poets and playwrights in history -- Allen Ginsberg, Dylan Thomas, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett and most recently Ray Carver -- he's managed to apply them quite universally, without the appearance of heavy-handed intellectualism and has made them something to which any one of us could readily relate, whether or not the the parallels are realized. An unusual combination of cerebral and visceral, there's something uniquely inspiring about his bent, Yeah, some of the earlier references were what I was reading in college, but there's a running theme of whatever I'm reading in one way or another I guess, he offers, adding Right now, I'm reading a lot of (Don) Delillo, (Ray) Carver, (John) Steinbeck, (Kurt) Vonnegut...I'm working my way through the entire series of Delillo. I like him.

Asked if he still gets nervous before shows, Ross replies simply, I get nervous when we don't have shows, y'know? When we take off for more than a week or so, I get restless; I feel like I should be doing something. I need to be out there, contributing; communing with an audience. I really miss it when we're not on stage.

Any nervous habits in general? He replies without missing a beat, I pace. A lot. I used to smoke, but I quit two years ago, this explains in part, why the characteristic growl has smoothed somewhat since previous releases, Did the gum. People really don't realize how hard that is to do; to quit smoking.

A staunchly-held position among critics following the release of their first album American Standard held Seven Mary Three to an unfair caricaturization as 'Pearl Jam bubblegrunge' with an 'Eddie Vedder wannabe' at the helm. The premature assessment undoubtedly shadowed some of the very concrete validity of their ensuing efforts for a number of years.

Regarding the inevitable question of his current position on the critics' rather dismissive early-on categorization of the band, he responds easily, philosophically, and with another surprising measure of unpracticed humility, You know, that was a really incredible time in music; the late eighties, early nineties. We really had so much come out of that time that was almost lost, coming out of the excess of the early eighties, trying so hard to counter the 'image' and just get back to the music. Vedder's an incredible artist with a lot to say and I think on our first album, when we were 18 or 19, we did sort of pattern ourselves after what was the market...and they were definitely part of that market. But I think in the albums since, we've all developed in our own directions. I feel like we've stepped well out of that shadow.

As we have grown, so too has he. His lyrics, always a step-above, have evolved from epithets to lost groupies to reflections of genuine admiration for his wife's intelligence, uniqueness and fortitude; from borderline self-loathing to what seems a version of self-acceptance of who he is today; from a twenty-something to a thirty-something. They still reflect us beautifully, those words...maybe even better: just listen.