Lissa Barnum (Mendelsohn) was born in Mexico City to American parents of European descent. She was a film and theatre major at UCLA and a High School speech champion in Northern California. She came to Australia in the early 80s with her husband Andrew Barnum. They met producer Mark Moffat who got them signed to the Hot Music Co. through Festival / EMI records as an independent act called Vitabeats. Vitabeats created their national independent dance hits ''Boom Box'' (which charted inside the Top 40) and ''Audrey Hepburn'' which led to the release of the album 'Spot the Spanner' in the mid 80s.
