Maynard James Keenan discussed replacing original Tool bassist Paul D’Amour with Justin Chancellor during a recent live Q&A with Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil. Alternative Nation transcribed the comments.
Thayil said, “We lost two bass players in Europe, our first two trips to Europe we came back a three piece. So it’s a tough thing to endure, you did, to a degree. I think Europe cost you a bass player as well, didn’t it ultimately? Paul in London? Do you want to tell the story about that?”
Keenan responded, “I don’t put too much stock in psychics, but I will say I feel like if you’re into kinetics, where you read people, understand just watching pulse, eye movement, hand gestures, attitude, breathing. I feel like tarot readers, psychics, if they’re worth their salt, they’re really good at those cold readings on people. What you do when you go to a psychic like that, you already have an idea of what you might be wanting to do, but in some way you need some kind of an outside source to tell you what you’ve already decided, but you’re just unconscious about what it is you want to do. You can’t quite come to it yourself, so you go to those people.
This person however seemed a little different than that, because I gave her some jewelry that I had been wearing for several years. She basically held the jewelry, she started writing some stuff down on a piece of paper. We had considered getting rid of Paul at that point, because things were just not going well. On a piece of paper she wrote: ‘Who is Paul?’ I go, ‘He’s part of the organization.’ She goes, ‘Yeah, you’re done with him.’ I just had gotten the call before from one of the other band members saying, ‘We’ve got to get rid of Paul.’ On the piece of paper she also wrote: ‘London.’ I folded the piece of paper up, put it in my pocket, and I didn’t tell anybody about it. I got back, we started thinking about replacement people, unanimously Danny and Adam decided on this gentleman from London named Justin Chancellor.”
