Patricia Andrzejewski was born in Brooklyn and raised in suburban Lindenhurst, Long Island. Her mother Millie had sacrificed her own career as an opera singer to bring up Pat and son Andrew. Years later it was Pat who singing classical, honing the powers of her 4.5-octave voice as a member of Lindenhurst High's musical-theater department. Having been accepted at Juilliard, Pat shocked friends and family by marrying her high-school sweetheart Dennis T. Benatar, a soldier, and moving off to Virginia where he had been stationed.

Having thrilled the audience with her first performance on amateur night, Pat soon found herself with a paying gig, a manager and a recording contract, but her image was still in limbo. Primarily singing torch song and Judy Garland classics, she longed to perform hard-rocking tunes in the Led Zeppelin vein. Her wishes were fulfilled when her handlers introduced her to Cleveland guitar-man Neil Giraldo, whose aggressive playing unleashed Pat's inner rocker. She had found her muse, and when her audience roared one Halloween night over a sultry costume she wore on stage, she had found her image.