Unleashing Thunderous Sound: The Rumours Live

What happens when a band blends gritty rock-and-roll with a fiercely visceral punk energy, while bludgeoning a crowd with a raw and thunderous sound?

You get The Rumours live.

A tattooed female musician passionately singing into a microphone while playing an electric guitar, with another musician partially visible in the background. The image is in black and white, capturing the intensity of a live performance.

Hailing from Waterloo, Iowa; comprised of Carli Foxx on guitar, Ela Moore on bass, and Clint Wheelman on the drums, The Rumours are a gritty, female-led band known for their loud, aggressive, and explosive live shows. Carving out a reputation as one of the Midwest’s loudest and most uncompromising live acts, their sound mixes riff-heavy guitar, driving bass lines, and thumping drums with blunt, confrontational lyrics that often reflect their experiences as women in a male-dominated rock world.

Their earlier music leaned towards straight rock and roll and eventually evolved toward a punk-infused sound with riot-grrrl energy, finding their own voice while growing into who they believe they are.

The Rumours Socials

Joplin, Missouri – Blackthorn Pizza and Pub is a beloved downtown establishment with deep roots in the community since 2007. Blackthorn’s intimate room made the volume feel twice as punishing — the kind of venue where there’s nowhere to hide from the sound.”

When The Rumours hit the stage, it’s immediately clear their live show is as much a performance as it is a concert. Commanding the stage and shouting for more vocals in the monitor to set themselves up for a blistering set. The moment the first chord rang out before launching into their opening song “Kill or be Killed”, it felt like you were being waterboarded with a wall of distortion and drums. Thick and punishing while the band kept control of the room, it felt less like hearing a band and more like being hit with a tidal wave. A ruthless grit that filled the room with electricity.

Frontwomen Carli Foxx and Ela Moore command the stage with a kick-in-the-face presence; their back-and-forth vocals were locked in and razor sharp, cutting through the mix with clarity even at full throttle. Combined with a feral attitude that you can’t help but love, their connection with the crowd is palpable —inviting everyone, but especially women and girls, to the front and center to experience their intense energy without being marginalized.

“Joplin, we are here for the women. We are girls girls. We are here to empower the girls. We are here for the men, to empower the girls.
Girls you can wear whatever the fuck you want, and you should feel safe. No one should fucking harass you.”

Openly talking about their experiences as women in rock, both Carli and Ela made it clear that they’re not here to fit an old stereotype, but to own the building and prove they earned every inch of the stage, and deserve all of the praise they’re given in the music world.

Carli spoke candidly about the challenges women face in rock, with Ela chiming in –

From where we’re from, a lot of men don’t support us. They call us sluts and say that we’re lucky we got here cause we wear bikini tops on stage.It just turns out that their band sucks.

“Yeah as if we don’t work as hard as you. If anything, women have to work harder cause, *growling* they get the bottom of the shit. They don’t respect women. FUCK THEM! We’re here to prove it, so fuck you!”

When Carli broke a string on her guitar, she still ripped through and finished the song while afterwards proudly boasting it was the first string broken in eight days on tour, laughing that it was “string-changing day” and she’d skipped it. Then banter between Carli and Ela going back and forth about their tour routines of changing batteries every two days and strings every three days.

“its’ crazy because it’s string change day and I didn’t do it.”

It was unscripted, a little chaotic, and perfectly on brand — proof that The Rumours don’t just play to a room, they pull it into the experience. Speaking of pulling the room into the concert…

“WHAT DOES THE WORD NO MEAN?
*crowd barely says no*
Nah, that was pathetic
WHAT DOES THE WORD NO MEAN?
*crowd better this time*
NO MEANS NO, you shouldn’t have to say it more than fucking once.“

The Rumours give you an experience that is loud, unpredictable, and intensely fun. From chaotically ripping through songs to in-between discussions about wearing socks during sex (and pee drenched socks/boots because of mommy bladder) only to slam right back into face-melting distortion and thunderous drums. That balance of humor and ferocity is part of their charm.

They’re the kind of band you want to catch in an intimate room like Blackthorn Pub now — because their confidence, chemistry, and sheer force of their live show is destined for much bigger stages soon.