Although he was recently honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Bass Magazine Awards in January, Tool bassist Justin Chancellor remains remarkably humble regarding his own place in the pantheon of rock musicians. In a comprehensive new conversation with Guitar World, the bassist deflected much of the praise toward his bandmates, specifically suggesting that drummer Danny Carey and vocalist Maynard James Keenan have secured their places among history’s elite.
While Chancellor‘s intricate bass lines are a defining element of Tool‘s sound, he views himself and guitarist Adam Jones as the hardworking anchors supporting two generational talents.
“There’s a vulnerability to our music that attracts people,” Chancellor told Guitar World. “Maynard is up there with the greatest vocalists, I think Danny will go down as one of the best rock drummers of all time, and Adam and I have our own styles. We’re not the greatest, but we try really hard, and there’s an honesty that comes through. People can hear that and relate to it on a deeper level.”
For Chancellor, sharing the stage with musicians of this caliber serves as a constant motivator rather than a source of comfort. He explained that maintaining a hunger to improve is essential to the band’s longevity, warning against the dangers of buying into one’s own press.
“I still feel like I’m trying hard to be in a good band, I really do. And I think that’s a healthy approach,” he admitted. “If you start to believe the hype about yourself, then you start to lose the bigger picture, and your focus is in the wrong place. You get to enjoy that kind of gratitude when you play your live show, so you don’t need to spend the rest of your time thinking about it.”
The interview also shed light on the mechanics of Tool‘s notoriously complex songwriting process. Despite the band’s reputation for mathematical precision, Chancellor revealed that the initial sparks of inspiration are often mundane and spontaneous, captured on smartphones before being subjected to the group’s rigorous development phase.
“We have a whole treasure chest of ideas on our phones that we record on our own,” Chancellor said. “Basically, Adam and I have riffs and Danny has rhythms or different time-signature beats, and we try to keep them basic before bringing them in to see what the other members will do with them.”
He elaborated on how he views his specific function within the sonic wall that Tool creates, describing the bass as the critical binding agent.
“My role is to marry things together – that’s the duty of bass guitar in general, as the glue in the lower register. It’s something you feel that merges the kick and the guitar strings and the voice. It has melody, but it’s deep down there so it can support everything. We establish a riff so we and the listener can identify it, and then we say, ‘Okay, now how far away from it can we go on this journey?’”
A significant portion of Chancellor‘s creative freedom comes from the safety net provided by Danny Carey. The bassist noted that Carey‘s uncanny ability to navigate odd time signatures allows the strings section to experiment without losing the groove.
“A lot of times a riff will come to me when I’m walking my dogs or driving around, and when I go to count it out it’s usually in an odd meter, but you can make anything straight time when you put four beats behind it. That’s something we take full advantage of in our music,” Chancellor explained. “But then again, I have the advantage of Danny being our drummer, so I can play anything and he latches right on and makes it better. I can bring him something in 7 and he’ll be right on it. Even if something sounds a little uncomfortable, Danny finds a way to groove through it and make it come alive.”
The band’s meticulous nature has, of course, led to infamous gaps between releases. Fans weathered a 13-year drought between 10,000 Days and 2019’s Fear Inoculum, a delay caused by the very perfectionism Chancellor describes. While former members like bassist Paul D’Amour have criticized this exhaustive process, and even Keenan has expressed a desire for efficiency, Chancellor has seemingly accepted that Tool operates on its own timeline. As he noted earlier this year, for this group: “art doesn’t really have a schedule.“
