Blackwater Holylight

A Song That Changed My Life: Blackwater Holylight on Judas Priest

A Song That Changed My Life

Band Members: Allison ‘Sunny’ Faris, guitar, bass, and vocals; Mikayla Mayhew, guitar; Eliese Dorsay, drums.

The Storyteller: Eliese Dorsay

The Song: “The Hellion,” the gallant, standalone twin-guitar tone prelude to Judas Priest’s classic “Electric Eye.” Its anthemic metallic opening—crafted by the architects of modern metal—set the standard for monumental hard-rock salvos, both in song and on stage.

The Background: Blackwater Holylight’s unsettling atmospherics began circulating through Portland’s foggy mists several years ago. Finding fertile ground for their doom-gaze sound, the band crafted three full-length albums and cultivated a devoted following. Despite their Pacific Northwest success, the slow burn of Los Angeles’ darker subterranean world drew them toward the Southland, where they conceptualized and recorded the EP If You Only Knew before ultimately relocating.

With the forthcoming 2026 release Not Here Not Gone, drummer Eliese Dorsay reflects on the unlikely origin story behind her lifelong admiration of metal —a thirty-second commercial — and how it unexpectedly shocked her into the electrifying world of Judas Priest, altering how she hears, feels, and creates music.

The Story:

Sometimes the smallest, most ordinary moments carry the greatest significance, leaving a profound impact in the most unexpected ways. For Eliese Dorsay, it was an unassuming after-school ritual—sitting in front of the television—when a Honda Odyssey advertisement transformed the mundane, amplifying it into the monumental. In short: the sound—Judas Priest’s “The Hellion”—careened through the air. The spectacle unfolded: a man made his way toward a minivan, pyrotechnics erupted as a panther prowled. The end scene: the hatchback opened, revealing a towering Marshall Amp stack. Jaw dropped. Metal nirvana.

“In an instant,” Dorsay recalls, “I had never heard any riffs like that before—something that heavy and epic.”

The collision of searing sonics and stylized visuals shifted Dorsay away from the three-chord melodics she’d been listening to and toward the darker, more metal side. “It changed my life hearing this song.” She adds, “This sound—the riffs. It was something I just needed more of—I was caught up listening to pop-punk, and that was the first time that I thought—this is real metal.”

This brief snapshot rewired how Dorsay embraced music altogether. “I thought to myself, ‘This is what I want to do with my life forever… my life is now metal.’” Judas Priest instantly became one of her all-time favorite bands. “I immediately looked up the band and dove into a portal of heavy metal. I could not stop listening to Screaming for Vengeance.”

Dorsay’s rigorous examination of The Metal Gods’ work opened the door to a wider world of music and technique. “Judas Priest introduced me to some of the greatest heavy-hitting acts that would go on to inspire me as a musician to this day,” she notes. This trajectory soon led her to Def Leppard and other big, commanding, and precise drummers of the 1980s, whose style continues to shape her drumming approach in Blackwater Holylight.

“Every one of my drum hits I craft to be powerful and tough, while also balancing simplicity with fills that complement the riffs,” she explains, “knowing when to pull back is just as important as knowing when to hit hard.” Her approach, shaped by her early metal discoveries, reflects the precision, drama, and intensity she first encountered in that snapshot in time.

In retrospect, a brief vignette of daily life became more than a short-lived moment—it crystallized the deep-seated connection between sound, vision, and memory. Today, hearing “The Hellion,” Dorsay recognizes how it forever altered the way she listens to and crafts music. For metal lovers everywhere, the track remains one of the most epic and toughest album intros of all time, and for Dorsay, a flashback she can summon anytime for inspiration behind the kit. As she puts it simply: “One of the greatest metal bands on earth… Judas Priest!”