Ladyhawke

Phillipa Margaret Brown was born on 13 July 1979 in Masterton, a town in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. She came from a musical family, with her mother being a singer-guitarist and her stepfather, a jazz drummer. During her childhood, various illnesses and allergies kept her in and out of hospital. At age ten she contracted erysipeloid, a disease that is common in seagulls but had not been seen in humans in New Zealand for twenty years. Her allergies to antibiotics, penicillin and antihistamines greatly complicated treatment efforts and almost put her into a coma, and she came close to dying. Brown has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. She believes that the large amount of her childhood she spent absorbed in music, be it listening to the radio or to her mother's Beatles and Pretenders albums, was attributable to this syndrome. While attending Chanel College, she played in several grunge bands. After high school, Brown moved from Masterton to Wellington.