Ladyhawke

“Young, gifted, and autistic”: That’s how the November 16th Independent profile describes New Zealand-born singer-songwriter Pip Brown of Ladyhawke:

recently, she revealed to a British newspaper that she has Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism) which suddenly shifted media interest from her music to her autism………

But it’s not the story that the singer wants to be defined by. “I really regret talking about it,” she says. “There’s a kid with Asperger’s who wrote to me on MySpace, saying I was a liar. It was really hurtful. I was like, you have no idea what I’ve been through. Yeah, I’m a bit weird. I do weird things. I’ve been really wary since then.” Not that it shows. Brown is chatty, warm and sincere; in many ways, the opposite of the autistic stereotype – which goes to show how far the stereotype is from reality, and how far she has come. Slouched on a sofa, she talks breezily, in her thick Kiwi accent, about her overwhelming and exciting year as a rising star.

Brown talks about her trouble in school as a child (”‘I wouldn’t go to school when I was younger, and when I did, I would just stare out the window. I didn’t like anyone touching me and I didn’t like people coming near me’”) and how she started playing piano at 8 and drums at 11 and “‘that was it for me. I loved it,’” as she says.

A couple of years ago—after locking herself in her house for three months—Brown got a diagnosis and felt much relief. It’s noted that live shows still aren’t the easiest for Brown, “partly due to the syndrome, partly due to nerves.”

Music, as I note a lot here, is a big part of Charlie’s and our lives and Pip Brown’s story resonates.