Eleven-year-old Phillipa 'Pip' Brown was at school in Masterton, New Zealand when music teacher Frank Bain walked into the classroom and asked if anyone would like to try playing the drums. Pip raised her hand. It was the first time she'd ever raised her hand for anything. Bain sat her at a drum kit and showed her how to drum a 4/4 rhythm. She nailed it straight away.



He asked, "Have you had lessons?"



Pip answered no, apart from some "boring" piano lessons a couple of years earlier, that is.



"Well, you're a natural," he said.



Pip beamed with pride. A musician was born. Pip recalls: "I started playing drums, which just completely opened up my whole world. It was so exciting I couldn't believe it. I hadn't realised till that moment that I was that good at anything, other than art. I just wanted to be a musician from that point on pretty much."



Playing on stage at Rockquest in Wellington was her first "proper" gig, she says. "It was so fun. Afterwards a guy came up to me with a pamphlet and said, 'You should really think about going to music school'. I remember thinking, 'Wow, that guy thinks I'm good enough to go to music school!' So it definitely left an impression on me."



Her first serious band was Ramones- inspired Two Lane Blacktop, in which she played the guitar and sang backing vocals.



The band split after a couple of years, and Brown moved to Melbourne. She formed Teenager with Nick Littlemore, and again took guitar and backing vocals duty, but a desire to do her own thing led her to London in 2007, armed with demos of songs that would get her a record deal and her first album.



Now, more than 20 years later, Pip Brown is known more widely by her stage name Ladyhawke. She tours with a live band, but in studio she plays all the instruments.