Sleepwalking' was the last song we wrote, in early 2001. And while Ross often draws from personal experiences, there are no songs about Pollock's departure on the album. There's no more pivotal experience in my life that I haven't tried to come to some understanding about through music. That eventually will have to happen, but I haven't yet come to terms with it. I think B.B. King once said that.
All music is inspired, no matter how original.
And on ' Sleepwalking ' and ' Breakdown ' I had a lot of fun lyrically. It's one of those mantra situations, telling myself to be comfortable with your own past, whether or not people interpret it that way. I would rather write about the nuts and bolts of it than the arena-rock side of it. Indeed, Seven Mary Three are in the unusual place of being a commercial band with indie sensibilities, which makes their return to Mammoth all the better. There's only a handful of employees at Mammoth, and that's how it was when we were first there with American Standard , before we switched to Atlantic , Mammoth's old parent company.