Adalita Srsen - Early Life and Childhood

Early Life and Childhood

Adalita was born in Geelong, Australia on 25 February 1971. She told Rolling Stone magazine in 2003 that her father, a Croatian cabaret performer, named her after a Spanish song.

She told Triple J's Richard Kingsmill in 2000 that she made her first guitar out of cardboard and wool, before her mother bought her her first acoustic guitar. "After persuading my mum to buy me a guitar, I learnt a few chord progressions from a music book and then started writing and recording very strange songs, using two tape decks and layering guitar parts and vocal harmonies."

Adalita told Australian Guitar magazine (when she became the first female to grace the magazine's cover) in 2005 that she "was 18 or 19 when I bought my first my $90 acoustic (guitar) for whatever strange reason I bought it for, on a whim. Then I got an electric maybe six months later and started on that - what was that - in like 1989, 1990.'

Early in the '90s, she formed Deer Bubbles with then partner Dean Turner. The band didn't last long and by 1992, the pair, along with guitarist Daniel Herring, started a new band, briefly known as The Jim Jims. With the addition of drummer Adam Robertson, they became known as Magic Dirt.