Following a pair of strong albums, Blackwater Holylight is hitting their stride with their recently released 3rd LP Silence/Motion. As the name evokes, it offers a collection of songs deeply rooted in contrast. While they remain true to their stoner doom origin, we now find them layering their sound with an atmospheric depth that suits them perfectly. Here can be found some of their most melodic and catchy music to date and yet, some of their most somber. Influences are far ranging, from touches of krautrock and black metal riffing and back vocals, to droning psych synth work, and an overall dreamy atmosphere akin to shoegaze. All of it meshes and layers into a concise effort that has us very curious of the road ahead of them.
We spoke to Sunny, vocalist and bassist, occasionally guitarist, for the Portland band.
Blackwater Holylight’s album Silence/Motion is available on Riding Easy Records.
Catch the band live in Western US with All Them Witches, January 21st to February 6th. Visit https://www.blackwaterholylight.com/tour.
What have you been listening to the most lately?
It’s been all over the place. We actually just made a playlist for Evil Greed. They are an European based merch distributors and they put out these curated playlists by the bands that they sell merch for called Up To Date. We just made one on Spotify and it’s like 16 hours long, different collections of stuff that we’ve all been listening to. The title of it was Our Favorite Shit. It’s all over the place but the stuff that I have on there is bands that I talk about quite frequently like, INTER ARMA, THE BODY, a band called FORN I’ve been listening to a ton. A lot of our friends’ bands as well.
What genres do you seem to gravitate to? What type of music do you find yourself listening to the most in different settings, say driving or around the house or walking outside, stuff like that?
It’s definitely all over the place. On this last tour that we did in Europe, I was listening to TURNSTILE a ton. I only had a few albums downloaded on my phone but I was listening to Turnstile, a band called NOTHING. I don’t know if you’ve heard them, but I love both of those bands.
Yeah, both of them. I assume it was the latest Turnstile, right?
Yeah, so good! It’s funny, the first time I heard them, I really didn’t like it at all. I was not into it. I remember Mikayla putting it on her phone and I was like, “What’s that weird pop punk?” But then I heard it again and just got totally hooked and now I’m obsessed. I listened to that record probably almost every day, if not a couple times a day on tour.
That’s actually been the experience for a lot of people around me, where it really grew on them. It seems like a band where a lot of people are not sure at first but then there’s a moment when it clicks and you’re hooked.
Yeah. I had similar experiences with a couple of bands. I feel like I usually know right away if I’m going to listen to them a lot but it wasn’t it for Turnstile. It was just not my vibe at all but then I had that click moment and I became obsessed.
I also listen to WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM a lot though. Pop punk and black metal, ah!
That’s not something that you’ll hear in the same sentence too often! I love it.
Do you jump around between genres a lot when casually listening to music, going from black metal to pop punk or whatever else you listen to? Or you kind of gravitate gradually from one to the next?
I bounce around quite a bit. I mean, if I’m having a day where I’m in a particular mood, or I’m having a hard time, maybe I’ll gravitate towards one thing, but usually, I’m just listening to playlists that have a bunch of different stuff on it already. And if I’m listening to full albums, I’m always bouncing all over the place. I don’t have the attention span to listen to one kind of music all day, unless I’m in a really kind of specific place. I love all different kinds of music.
What’s your favorite ways of discovering new music? In more normal times, is it live, on records, friends recommendation, browsing around, etc?
I think I mostly hear new music through my friends. Or other musicians, when we’re talking about music. Or I’m in the car and something comes on and I’m like, “What is this?” I used to seek it out a lot more, when shows were happening more often. I would browse through shows and if something looked cool, I’d look them up on the internet and then go to the show, but obviously, it’s been a little harder to do that.
What’s the last time that you remember discovering a band live and being blown away?
We just went to a show in LA, there’s this black metal band out of LA called LAMP OF MURMUUR. It was really close to Halloween. That was incredible. I think that’s the last show that I went to where I didn’t know the bands playing. I haven’t been to a ton of shows honestly.
What’s the band that you’ve toured with that impressed you the most? The one that you just had to watch their set, night after night.
It’s tough because I feel like all the bands that we’ve toured with have been amazing. We went on tour with our friends in a band called THOU a couple years ago, and that was really fucking cool to watch them play every night. I just never got sick of it. I wanted to see it over and over, but the tour ended and that was that. It wasn’t a very long tour. I think that any bands that you go on with for 20 plus days, they can be an amazing band, but after a while, you can love them but no one watches their set every night. I don’t know, that’s just me. Then we’ve toured with MONOLORD a couple times so it was fun to watch them. We’ve toured with YOB, we’ve gotten to play with some really amazing bands, so we kind of lucked out in that category for sure.
Overall, what are some of the most memorable shows that you’ve seen in your life?
That’s a hard question, I feel there’s so many. I really like going to big shows where there’s a ton of people and the crowd is huge. That’s bigger bands, like PRIEST or something. I feel like my most precious memories of watching music or having fun or even playing are smaller, more intimate shows. There was a few in Portland that I’ve seen, just friends’ bands, not anything super crazy, and it’s just a small intimate crowd and that’s what makes it feel really special too. Those from when I was younger, I feel are more special moments for me.
What are some of those early ones that really grabbed your attention? Actually, I don’t know where you grew up, but what was one of the best local bands from your area during that time?
When I was in high school, I went to see some local bands but it’s hard to even remember that far back. There were really cool metal bands that I went to see. There is this band GHOST OF VERNONA at my high school that I thought were really cool but there’s no way that they still exist. But I saw the band DUNGEN, they’re a Swedish psych band, they played in Portland a handful of years ago, and that was a really fucking cool show. Everyone was really paying attention. It was the most psychedelic, coolest stuff and the drummer was amazing. That was a little intimate space, I remember feeling like it was a really good show. Another one that I remember from Portland that was also small and intimate was the time BORIS played at a place called Doug Fir, I want to say less than 300 person cap and it was full. Again, everyone was really watching the bands and paying attention, everyone was super captivated. To be in that small audience was really special.
If we go all the way back, do you remember the first time that music made an impression on you? The moment when you discovered your love for music?
Yeah, I have a memory from when I was a kid. My dad had a lot of records and they were on a shelf that was low to the ground so I remember being really little and flipping through his records and looking at all the covers and thinking they’re so cool. Then putting it on the record player and dancing around the living room with my dad. Just being really interested in how they work and how they look and how they all kind of sat next to each other.
I also have another memory of driving around as a little kid and having the thought that we could be listening to the radio, and I could hear a song from a band and not know what they were called, but then hear another song from the same band later and knowing that it was the same band. Just being so curious about how you can tell that it’s the same band based off what you heard. Even if I didn’t have the vocabulary, thinking about how bands build up their own sound and being really curious about that. Being really captivated by how there’s so many different songs that exist and having a thought like, “How do they keep on coming up with new ones?” That was definitely a thing I remember that came from listening to the radio when I was really little.
Then, what are some records that were really pivotal in your discovery of music? Artists or albums that made an impression and opened up a new world to you?
I think Deja Vu from CROSBY, STILLS NASH AND YOUNG is one of my most staple albums from being a kid and wanting to listen to it over and over and over. My dad had that record and I still love that album, I listen to it all the time. That’s probably my biggest childhood staple.
What came up next, say in high school?
Oh god! I was listening to terrible music in high school. I was listening to mallcore and like, UNDEROATH and the shittiest fucking metal and yeah, I don’t even want to admit that!
Yet it was your gateway to metal though. It led you to where you eventually went. Maybe it fell by the wayside but it still got your foot in the door, right?
Yeah. It was bands like Underoath and AS I LAY DYING and AUTUMN BURNS RED and all this fuckin’ emo metal. Terrible, terrible. But I was so into it when I was like 16. I thought I was so cool. I mean, it all counts but it is a little bit more embarrassing. But honestly all my friends had some kind of moment liking really emo music, like CURSIVE and that kind of crap. I can’t remember other names. But I still think that Cursive is cool, actually.
Do you tend to overplay stuff and then put it aside? Or do you go back to a lot of music that you’ve listened to, through different periods of your life?
Yes or no. I mean, I definitely overplay stuff. If I get super into a record, I’ll listen to the shit out of it. Then I get kind of burnt out on it. But there’s a lot of classics that I grew up with that everyone still listens to, and then there’s more stuff from the era of my high school age that I can’t stand to fucking hear anymore. So it’s kind of both ends, you know?
Do you have any unpopular music opinions that you’d like to defend? Something that you truly love, but can hardly find anyone to agree with you?
Well, me and Mikayla, especially last summer, we were on a DIXIE CHICKS, or just The Chicks now, kick. They’re like pop country so not everyone likes it. We’ll put it on for our friends and sometimes they’re like, “What are you doing?” It’s completely pop music but there’s some pop that I actually like and I’m all about The Dixie Chicks. Not everyone gets on that tip though. Wide Open Spaces, from 1998? Great album.
Is there any bands that you didn’t really like on record, but seeing them live totally change your opinion?
I’m sure, yes…I remember the first time I heard TY SEGALL, I didn’t really like the recordings at all. Then they came to Portland, years and years ago, and their show was so high energy and so good and tight, I was like, “Oh, okay! That fucking rips!” That was definitely one that I didn’t like the music at first and then totally changed my mind after seeing live, for sure.
When you listen to something new, is there anything that will make or break the experience for you? Is there something that your often find yourself gravitating to, may it be the production or the playing, or the vocals, etc?
I feel like now these days when I’m listening to new music, I definitely am paying more attention to the production side just because now, personally in my life, I’ve had more experience in the studio and producing our own sound and stuff. So it’s something that I’m trying to pay a little bit more attention to, but it doesn’t necessarily make or break. I think the songwriting, and the band itself, you either like it or you don’t. Earlier we were talking about hearing something you don’t like at first and you kind of change your mind but I don’t really have like, a band has to have this and this and this or if you don’t I’m definitely not gonna like it. It’s each individual thing. I used to not really pay attention at all to production stuff. Now I’m hearing more of that in new music and music that I listen to a lot already. It’s something that I’m learning about so it’s fun to be able to do that.
Is there any up and coming artists that you’d like to recommend? Perhaps something you discovered during the pandemic and didn’t get to see live yet?
There’s this band BIG|BRAVE that live in Montreal. Fucking awesome. They’re definitely up and coming. I mean, they’ve already done some really incredible shit. But yeah, they live in your neck of the woods and they’re insanely good. You should look them up for sure. They are on that Spotify playlist I talked about earlier.
In closing, is there anything that would you like to promote for the band?
We’re going to be going on a tour here in a couple of weeks with a band called ALL THEM WITCHES. It’s kind of the Western half of the United States, not full US. But we’re going to be getting out, all of those dates are posted on our Instagram and our website. So if anyone can make it out to any of those shows, that’s what we have coming up next. Then, we have a little bit of time off before we pick back up in April. We’re really excited.
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