New CANNIBAL CORPSE Touring Guitarist BRANDON ELLIS: 'It's An Amazing Opportunity To Get' This Gig

Brandon Ellis is standing in for CANNIBAL CORPSE guitarist Rob Barrett on the Florida death metal veterans' U.S. tour this summer/fall. The trek, featuring support from MUNICIPAL WASTE, FULL OF HELL and FULCI, kicked off on September 15 in Nashville, Tennessee and will conclude on October 22 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Just a few hours prior to the Nashville concert, Ellis told Another Rundown about how he was feeling about landing the CANNIBAL CORPSE gig (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I'm feeling good, man. I can't wait to rip the Band-Aid off and get this show over with. I've been sweating it for many days, just busting my ass, learning all these hella confusing songs and just cranking out riffs every day."

Regarding his preparation process, Ellis said: "I made videos for the guys [in CANNIBAL CORPSE] for every song that we're playing and a couple more. So I was, like, every day I would learn a song and turn on the camera and just try to get a perfect studio-quality take from front to back of a song I'd never really heard before, for a lot of them. It was a lot of work, man. [It took] a couple of weeks to just get all the songs together and get ready to be here today."

On the topic of his role in CANNIBAL CORPSE, Brandon said: "In this position here, I'm mostly playing a rhythm guitar gig. I have a handful, like five solos or so in the show or something like that, and I'm mostly just really doing justice to what Rob would do. So it's not like I'm up there showcasing all my fucking crazy solo guitar playing or whatever on this. But it's an amazing opportunity to get that [gig]."

He added: "I'm a CANNIBAL CORPSE fan since I was a teenager, dude. That's like the first death metal band that turned me on to it. And, yeah, it's surreal to be asked to do this. And I'm just, like, dude, tonight I'm gonna go on stage and I'm gonna play 'Hammer Smashed Face' with CANNIBAL CORPSE for the first time. It's gonna be crazy. Yeah, it's insane, dude. So, yeah, I'm lucky."

Ellis announced his departure from THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER in February.

Brandon, who made his name in fellow American death metallers ARSIS before replacing Ryan Knight in THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER in 2016, contributed to three albums during his near-decade stint in the latter group. Two of those featured the band's original vocalist Trevor Strnad, who passed in 2022.

CANNIBAL CORPSE's sixteenth studio album, "Chaos Horrific", was released in September 2023 via Metal Blade Records.

Since 1988, CANNIBAL CORPSE have been at the forefront of death metal, shaping and defining the genre. In 2021, they raised the stakes again with "Violence Unimagined". And in 2023, the band's thirty-fifth anniversary, they returned with its successor, the equally monstrous "Chaos Horrific", starting a new chapter in their storied legacy.

CANNIBAL CORPSE guitarist/producer Erik Rutan has now helmed six of the band's albums, starting with 2006's "Kill". This is Rutan's second release as a full-fledged member, since officially joining in 2020.

"Chaos Horrific" was recorded at Rutan's Mana Studio in Florida.