Girls in Bikinis and Broken Teeth: The Rumours Are the Loudest Damn Thing You’ll See All Year

The Rumours / The Goilz | Cambridge, Mass. | June 16

By K.M. North Edited by Elena Stevens Photography by K.M. North "Girls in bikinis" means something different to everyone. For me, it’s not a beach or a billboard fantasy. It’s The Rumours detonating onstage like a bar fight set to a backbeat, a room full of strangers blinking through the smoke like they just woke up inside a jet engine. That’s The Rumours.

Photography by K.M. North

They come out of Iowa, which feels like a cosmic joke until you see them play and realize geography has nothing to do with it. I’ve spent years photographing live music, chasing that split-second collision of sweat and sound, and very few bands have ever made me feel like I’m losing the fight the way The Rumours do. Half the time I’m trying to keep my camera steady, the other half I’m watching the crowd unravel: jaws slack, fists in the air, people grinning like they just got away with something illegal. It’s Joan Jett hijacking Motörhead’s tour bus with Kathleen Hanna riding shotgun, screaming directions and daring you to keep up. It’s not subtle. It’s not polite. It’s exactly the point. The Goilz (say it wrong and they will punch you, twice) don’t so much perform as they attack. They trade vocals like blows, rip through guitar and bass lines that feel like exposed wiring, and move across the stage like they’re trying to outrun the noise they’re making. Clint, the band's drummer, doesn't play it safe. Bonham-worthy fills, double bass, stick twirling, and the exact swagger a band like this needs. A drummer who plays it safe with no life behind the kit? I'm convinced the Goilz would offer him up as a sacrifice. The first time I saw them wasn’t planned.

For my 40th birthday, I drove three and a half hours to photograph Koffin Kats. By the time I got inside, The Rumours were already tearing through their second song. I heard them before I saw them, that low-end rumble crawling up the walls. My camera was out before my bag hit the floor. I shot them like I was trying to prove something, maybe to myself. By the end of the night, I’d taken three times as many photos of them as anyone else, and I was texting friends before I even left the venue: I think I just saw the best rock band in the world. Not a measured statement, not a careful one, just the kind you make when your ears are still ringing and you don’t care.

I needed to know if it was real or just the kind of night that tricks you. Five months later, I drove to Nebraska to see them again. Ohio to Nebraska in a day, because apparently that’s the kind of decision this band inspires. They were just as relentless, just as locked in, just as unwilling to give you anything less than everything. That’s when it settled in. Plenty of bands can have a great night. The Rumours don’t seem interested in that. Every time I’ve seen them, they play like the ceiling might cave in if they don’t. Spend a few minutes on their social media and you’ll see it echoed back at you. Photos, videos, people trying to explain what just happened to them. Strangers walking in, fans walking out, a little dazed, a little louder than before. Offstage, Carli, Ela and Clint are disarmingly kind, the kind of people you’d never guess are capable of that level of sonic violence. Onstage, they flip the switch and don’t look back. No coasting, no dialing it in, no safety net.

Photography by K.M. North

When the lights come up, nobody leaves quietly. There’s a line at the merch table before people have caught their breath, conversations spilling into the parking lot, voices still buzzing like they’re plugged into something. You can feel it hanging in the air, that sense that you just saw something you weren’t entirely prepared for. Most of us missed Motörhead. We missed The Runaways. We missed the early days of Joan Jett. We missed Bikini Kill. Those moments are gone, sealed up in stories and grainy footage.

But this isn’t.

If The Rumours are coming anywhere near you, go.

You’ll understand the second they hit the stage, so quit reading this and go see them before somebody else tells you what you missed.