Justin Chancellor

“We're not complete prodigies musically and as a band together it takes more and more work to find something new and special.”

“I don't know what I did to my main bass. I've poured makeup into it, I've bashed it around - and we've gone in the back and cleaned it up... It sounds amazing and one of a kind at this point, but it picks up a really decent radio signal if you're anywhere near an antenna.”

“We lock ourselves away and we concentrate on what we're doing and try not to think about the madness that's surrounding it, and all the hype.”

“The whole thing about Tool is that it kind of feeds on itself. If it's going, it's going. If it's at a grinding halt, there's either the will to pick it up again and get it going or not. We've been through serious stages of nothing... business problems or personal problems or whatever.”

“It's very rare that we play a gig and we all come off and say 'That was great, I had a great time!' There's always someone that's had a bad time. So the goal is always to achieve the next level of performing the piece that you've written. You're looking for something that you haven't even captured on the album.”

“In the end, our way of writing music is a long process of experimentation. We enjoy the luxury of taking this very seriously and giving it the time that it needs.”

“It's okay to be inspired by other people and it can be a useful learning tool to play other people's music, but let out what's inside of you.”

“Every time we record, and every time we go out live, we try and beat what we've already done.”

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

“If you're going to play bass, then play bass how you play bass. You can learn technique and theory, but we want to hear what you have to offer.”

“Anything you spend a long time on, of course it would be nice if everyone likes it. But I think the strength that we've got is that we always concentrate on what we want it to be like and not really trying to please other people.”

“As you grow older, you want to learn, you want to change, you want to evolve and you don't want to live in fear. Fear is the mind killer.”

“Maybe you have a particular type of sound you want to go for, but if you really want to be original, there's no real recipe for that. For me it's just about letting it come to you... if you can let your head clear out, then almost anything is available.”

“I'm still like a little kid about it, where I'm just so happy and excited that people want to come to our shows and watch us play. I still go outside the venues and take a picture of our name on the marquees. 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.”

“I'm a big Beethoven fan, and you'll struggle to find a three-minute song on any of his stuff.”

“We don't ever write stuff individually and say, 'OK, this is gonna be the song.' We bring in ideas in their rawest form and bounce them around to find the thing that is bigger than any individual's idea.”

“You can't help but have ideas when you're inspired musically.”

“The whole idea is preserving the music and the art and not having us and our faces and our individual characters distract from that. That was the original idea, and now it's really become part of what Tool is. It has allowed us to really concentrate on our music and our show.”

“We're our own worst critics.”

“Writing music is hard if your head is full of waste.”