Watch Tool bassist Justin Chancellor dress as Willy Wonka to prank support band onstage

Tool have released footage of bassist Justin Chancellor pranking their support band onstage.

The clip, published on social media yesterday (August 20), sees Chancellor dress up as fictional character Willy Wonka then gatecrash the set of post-rockers Night Verses. Tool and Night Verses toured Europe together during the summer, and several members of Tool’s road crew, dressed as birds, also hopped onstage.

Watch the video of the good-natured disruption below.

Chancellor joined Tool in 1995, replacing founding bassist Paul D’Amour. He made his recording debut with the progressive metal stars on their 1996 Ænima and has remained with them ever since.

In a recent Guitar World interview, D’Amour shed light on his reasons for leaving Tool, citing frustrations with their songwriting process. “People started overthinking all the parts, and I never was that way as a musician,” he explained. “I was always somebody that writes out of instinct. When we got to writing Ænima , we spent a year and basically wrote five songs. That, to me, was so frustrating.”

Tool released their latest album Fear Inoculum , their first LP in 13 years, in 2019. In a recent Kerrang! Interview, Chancellor said the band had “a couple of solid […] skeletons of songs” for their next album.

“Some ideas go back to before Fear Inoculum that are just simple riffs that we never incorporated into a song,” he revealed. “But sometimes that’s a bit like grinding the gears when you’re trying to resurrect or revisit them, so it’s really appealing to work on the newest stuff.

“Each time we come together, people also have so many new ideas and then we’ll spend all day playing them. We’re constantly introducing new stuff but then sometimes that’ll marry with the old material.”

Night Verses formed in 2012 and Fullerton, California, and released their latest album Every Sound Has A Color In The Valley Of Night in two parts from 2023 to 2024. Drummer Aric Improta is formerly of Fever 333 and currently plays with fellow ex-Fever 333 member Stephen Harrison in House Of Protection.