Tool’s Justin Chancellor Says Danny Carey And Maynard James Keenan Rank Among The All-Time Greats

While Tool bassist Justin Chancellor has earned no shortage of recognition throughout his career—including receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bass Magazine Awards earlier this year—he’s quick to shine the spotlight on his bandmates when discussing true greatness.

In a recent interview with Guitar World, Chancellor spoke at length about drummer Danny Carey’s singular abilities, suggesting that Carey’s reputation as one of rock’s most technically gifted drummers is more than justified. According to Chancellor, that praise isn’t just coming from fans and critics—it’s echoed from inside the band itself.

Chancellor also placed Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan in rarefied air, crediting both musicians as key reasons the band continues to connect so deeply with listeners. He explained:

“There’s a vulnerability to our music that attracts people. 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.”

Despite his own accolades, Chancellor says working alongside players of that caliber keeps him grounded—and motivated. Rather than buying into hype, he views that mindset as essential to longevity:

“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.”

The conversation also touched on Tool’s notoriously slow and meticulous songwriting process. Long gaps between albums have become part of the band’s legacy, with fans typically waiting five or more years between releases. That timeline stretched to an extreme with 2019’s Fear Inoculum, which arrived after a 13-year absence.

While Chancellor has previously advocated for a more streamlined approach, he’s also acknowledged the reality of the band’s creative limitations, remarking earlier this year that when it comes to Tool, “art doesn’t really have a schedule.” Former bassist Paul D’Amour has publicly criticized the exhaustive nature of the band’s writing process in the past, and even Keenan has expressed interest in speeding things up—though his many side projects ensure he’s rarely idle.

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Chancellor also offered insight into how his bass parts typically take shape, noting that ideas often surface away from the studio:

“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.”

Having Carey behind the kit, he added, allows those unconventional ideas to flourish:

“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.”

Before Keenan enters the process, Chancellor explained that the band builds ideas collaboratively from a shared archive of demos:

“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. 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?’”

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