Heavy music has plenty of bands that can write a riff you’ll hum for days. Prog has plenty of bands that can twist time until it resembles a math problem. The rare ones are the groups that can do both at once, and still hit you in the chest. Tool has lived in that overlap for decades, building songs that feel physical first, and only later reveal how much weird architecture is holding the ceiling up.
That balancing act is exactly why Justin Chancellor matters so much to the machine. When the guitars are jagged, and the drums are doing their own gravitational math, the bass can’t just “follow.” It has to steer. And while the band’s public image tends to orbit around mystique and intensity, Chancellor’s comments read more like someone who’s still trying to earn his spot in the room every night.
“There’s a vulnerability to our music that attracts people,” Chancellor told Bass Player. “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.”
That idea of vulnerability as a hook lands differently when you’re talking about a band that can sound like an industrial press smashing through a cathedral. But it tracks. Tool doesn’t just flex. They leave space for discomfort, tension, and that uneasy “what did I just hear?” feeling that keeps you replaying a section until it clicks.
Plenty of players with Chancellor’s influence could easily drift into self-mythology. His tone, his control of odd meters, his ability to make a bass part feel like a lead instrument without turning the song into a solo contest: those things have shaped modern heavy rock bass more than a lot of people want to admit.
And still, he frames it like work that could fall apart if he gets too comfortable: “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. 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.”
For a metal/hard rock audience, that’s the kind of mindset that usually shows up in the tightness of the performance. You can hear when a band is coasting. Tool doesn’t sound like they’re coasting; even when they’re repeating a motif, it’s more like a pressure test. The bass, especially, often feels like it’s pulling the song forward by the collar.
A lot of fans talk about Tool like the songs arrive fully formed from a dark, sacred place. Chancellor makes it sound more human than that, ideas showing up while living a regular life, then getting reshaped through rhythm and feel.
“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. And we’ll even overlap time signatures, or take an odd meter and straighten it out within a riff.”
And he’s also quick to point out the not-so-secret weapon: a drummer who can turn almost anything into something that breathes.
“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.”
If you’ve watched Tool live, or even just listened closely, you know what he means. The grooves aren’t “busy” for the sake of being clever. They’re elastic. The drum part doesn’t just support the riff; it interrogates it, then makes it swing anyway.
For a band with a cult reputation, the behind-the-scenes method sounds almost mundane: capture ideas quickly, keep them simple, and let the room decide what survives.
“We have a whole treasure chest of ideas on our phones that we record on our own. 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.
“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.”
