The tight-rope tension between light and dark is what makes doom-psych outfit Blackwater Holylight so enticing. The riffs run heavy. The convergence of melodies spider along. And the loneliness can dog-pile on like a mound of bricks, but that musical weight also serves as a release valve of sorts for its listeners—and the band itself.
“I heard someone say that ‘the only way out is through,’ and that just resonated with me so much,” vocalist Allison “Sunny” Faris tells the Weekly.“That’s so f*cking true to everything that we’ve been doing the last couple years.”
Faris, who also plays bass and guitar, Sarah McKenna (synths), Mikayla Mayhew (guitar and bass) and Eliese Dorsay (drums), have channeled their vulnerabilities into three albums, most recently 2021’s Silence/Motion. The band, which performed at the past two year’s of Psycho Las Vegas festival, will return to town for a June 3 show at Downtown’s the Usual Place with new songs in hand.
What lessons did you take away from Silence/Motion that you’re applying to your latest music? Silence/Motion was a vulnerable album to make in general, because we wrote [and recorded] it during COVID. There was a lot of processing that happened in that record. There was a level of feeling a little nervous about that, because it was unpeeling this layer that we hadn’t really opened ourselves up to with the previous albums. It felt a little bit more raw and a little bit more personal. After it came out and we toured it a lot, people really noticed that, and they really appreciated it. I think the biggest lesson with that record was that it’s OK to do you, and it’s OK to feel like what you’re doing isn’t going to speak to everyone, because there’s a lot of people that are going to connect with it.
Have you had time to heal from what you were going through during that time? Yeah, we’ve gone through a lot of changes as a band since then. We’ve moved to LA [from Portland, where the band was born]. We’ve done some tours, and the world has opened back up. Sarah, our synth player, had a child, and there’ve been a lot of breakups and deaths and births and moves and changes. Making that album and touring it, and singing those songs for people … helped us through all those transitions. It’s a group effort. We needed the crowds, [and] the crowds needed us.
What’s the dynamic like in Blackwater? Is it a sisterhood at this point? It’s been the four of us for …five-ish years, which is crazy. At this point, we know each other so well. We’re so tapped in, and it’s extremely familial. You wear so many different hats with each other. They’re your best friends, your sisters, your creative partners, your travel partners, your business partners. But between the four of us, and our merch guy Austin, who’s been with us since the beginning, we’ve got our flow down pretty hard.
Is there anyone in particular you hope your next album reaches? The hope for us always is that whoever listens to it feels something and finds some meaning in it, or it helps them get through something that they’re doing personally. Our goal is always to connect with people however we can or heal however we can. There’s so many bands out there that we could and want to tour with. It’s just a matter of being around people that are supportive of what you do, getting with people that believe in you, you believe in them, and then you get to build your little community around that.
Is there an album or a song that helped you get through a tough time? It’s actually funny, there’s this Swedish pop singer named Sarah Klang, who I am obsessed with, and it’s fully pop music. I love her voice, and her lyrics are amazing and so relatable. She just has this really eloquent way of attaching stories to her lyrics that makes it feel like “Oh, I’ve totally been in this position before.”
Speaking of pop, you lead a doom pop project called Whimz with Cameron Spies. He engineered your first record, but how did you decide to make music together? He and I, in terms of how we work, how we communicate, how we go through decision making in a creative environment, just really link. I texted him one day randomly like, “Hey, do you want to go into the studio and write a song together?” He was like, “f*ck, yeah.” The first thing we recorded ended up being on the record— “Pm1” and “Pm2.” When we recorded it originally the whole thing was 11 or 14 minutes long. Then we split it up into two songs. I ended up working on [our Pm226 EP] through the summer of 2021 before I moved out here.
His side project is called Night Heron. It’s really sexy, very sensual music, and then I make Blackwater stuff. You can hear both elements of us in Whimz. It feels a little doomy, because there’s some fuzzier parts, but to me it mostly feels like synth-pop. That project has always been for fun and will remain for fun.
Does your creative process with Cameron differ much from the women in Blackwater? It does because it’s a different mind, you know? [With] Blackwater, as time goes on and as we get into new material, everything is becoming more and more collaborative. Me and Cameron were totally collaborative. With Whimz we just recorded as we wrote. We didn’t go into the studio with anything figured out. We just did all of it as we recorded it. Everything that you hear on those was a tiny smidgen of an idea. But with Blackwater, obviously, there’s a lot more time, detail and intention behind parts, and teaching each other sh*t and reworking sh*t. We write and then we record.
Vulnerability definitely feels like the fifth member of the band. Your albums are so raw and honest. Does that ever come at the cost of becoming emotionally exhausted? You’re totally right, it is. It’s been interesting for us, because we’ve never really tried to put on the face of some band that we’re not. You come to LA, and there’s so many musicians here, and with that comes a lot of dressing like you play rock ’n’ roll. Yeah, it’s about the music and yeah, it’s about your art, but it’s also about looking cool and all of this sh*t.
We’ve never been an outfit band. We did in the very beginning … but that went out the window real quick. People see us, and they can tell and assume that we play music, but then we get onstage and we play what we play, and they’re like, “Oh, this band sounds like that” (laughs). It takes a level of courage to stand up and be yourself, not try to make it extravagant or extra, and let your art speak for itself.
What can folks expect from your Vegas gig? We’ll try and play an hour, if not a tiny bit longer. We don’t like to play too long, because all of us know how it is to be at a show and you’re standing there like, “OK, I’d really love to sit down now” (laughs). But we’re going to be playing stuff off of Veils [of Winter], Silence/Motion and a couple of new things. You’re gonna get a nice flavor platter of Blackwater.
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