Milkie Way

Milkie Way
Hastings performing in 2023
Background information
Birth name	Rachel Alexandra Hastings
Also known as	Milkie Way Girl in the Pit
Born	(1997-12-09) 9 December 1997 (age 26) County Antrim, Northern Ireland
Occupation(s)	Musician
Member of	Wargasm

Rachel Alexandra Hastings (born 9 December 1997), known professionally as Milkie Way, is a Northern Irish musician. Born in County Antrim, she moved to London to study at the London College of Fashion and spent time as a model and a concert photographer. She and Sam Matlock formed Wargasm in August 2019, and their mixtape and album Explicit: The Mixxxtape (2022) and Venom (2023) peaked at number 19 on the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart and number 88 on the UK Albums Chart respectively.

Hastings also played bass guitar as a session musician for Barns Courtney after meeting him through her Girl in the Pit photography project and for Yungblud during 2021. She also featured on Trash Boat's 2021 single "Bad Entertainment" and Gunship's 2023 single "Monster in Paradise". Her performance of "Bad Entertainment" at the 2021 Heavy Music Awards shut the ceremony's Twitch stream down, prompting defiant social media posts from the ceremony, Hastings, and Trash Boat's Tobi Duncan.

Milkie Way was born Rachel Alexandra Hastings in County Antrim on 9 December 1997.^[a] She was raised on Motown, soul music, and pop music such as David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, and the Temptations, got into guitar music via the Smashing Pumpkins and Bikini Kill,^[5] and got into nu metal via Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.^[6] Aged 14 or 15, she taught herself bass guitar to spite an ex-boyfriend who had derided her musical ambitions.^[7] She moved to London to study at London College of Fashion, but dropped out due to her inability to cope with being told what to do.^[8] She spent a period modelling in Tokyo^[9] immediately after dropping out.^[8] She also modelled alongside Cara Delevingne^[7] and for Toni & Guy and Valentino campaigns.^[10]

While at university, she would make friends by attending concerts with mosh pits, which she would photograph using disposable cameras.^[11] After accruing a collection of images, she launched the "Girl in the Pit" photography project, named after a sobriquet she had earned from her ubiquity at gigs.^[11] As part of the project, she photographed Dead!,^[7] a band who charted at number 11 on the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart in 2018 with The Golden Age of Not Even Trying.^[12] She also met Barns Courtney after being given a press pass to Reading & Leeds Festivals,^[11] who would take her on tour as his bass player.^[13]

In 2018, after Dead! broke up, the band's Sam Matlock direct messaged Hastings asking if she played an instrument,^[7] as he was looking to set up a band with female vocals and a Riot grrrl attitude.^[13] They began producing pop punk,^[1] but pivoted to producing nu metal after an incident in which Matlock rejuvenated a failing party with Limp Bizkit.^[14] The pair launched Wargasm in August 2019,^[15] and played Reading and Leeds Festivals' Apex Stage in 2022, on which she was the only woman to perform that year.^[16] Wargasm also released the mixtape Explicit: The Mixxxtape (2022) and the album Venom (2023),^[17] which respectively charted at number 19 on the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart and number 88 on the UK Albums Chart.^[18]

In July 2021, Hastings featured on Trash Boat's "Bad Entertainment", a track about media bias^[20] from their August 2021 album Don't You Feel Amazing,^[21] which charted at number 9 on the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart and number 70 on the Scottish Albums Chart.^[22] Trash Boat and Hastings performed the track at that year's Heavy Music Awards,^[23] for which she wore a custom designed crucifix vest created by Anine Irdem,^[19] a Norwegian designer.^[24] The ceremony's Twitch stream was banned for three days^[25] after trolls reported her for exposing her nipples,^[19] prompting Hastings to sarcastically tweet that she could not believe how powerful her nipples were.^[25] She also received tweets of support from Trash Boat's Tobi Duncan, who observed how hypocritical the ban was given that his nipples were also visible through his fishnet shirt, and from the award ceremony itself.^[25] Matlock later attributed the ban to multiple fans of another artist filing reports,^[4] and Hastings would later wear the outfit on the artwork for Explicit: The Mixxxtape.^[24]

By the time of "Bad Entertainment"'s release, Hastings had toured with Yungblud.^[26] She asserted in a September 2021 interview with the Heavy Music Awards that he had previously declined a request for her to be his session bassist as she was just about to announce Wargasm and that she had stepped in for some of his shows at the start of that year.^[27] In July 2023, she provided vocals for Gunship's "Monster in Paradise", which also featured Dave Lombardo, Tyler Bates, and Tim Cappello;^[28] later that year, the track appeared on their album Unicorn,^[29] which charted at number 26 on the UK Albums Chart.^[30]

In a January 2020 interview with Crowdsurf & Turf, Hastings cited vocal inspiration from Romily Alice of Japanese Voyeurs, on the grounds that her voice was the "perfect combination of sexy and aggressive".^[31] When asked in an early 2021 interview with Fred Perry what subcultures inspired her, Hastings cited disco music, on the grounds that the genre was "as much about sex and drugs as rock and roll was, only everyone just looked much more grandiose".^[32] When asked who her style icons were by Rokit Vintage Clothing in March 2021, she cited Prince, Wendy O. Williams, Paris Hilton, Sora Choi, Tank Girl, 1980s cock rock, Dennis Rodman, Joan Jett, Debbie Harry, Brody Dalle, and Lady Gaga.^[15]