Zedek grew up in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, attending Springbrook High School in Maryland, where she played clarinet in the marching band under band director Charles Sickafus. The early punk era of the late 1970s in which she came of age, and in particular Patti Smith, contributed deeply to the formation of her musical aesthetic. While still in high school she would travel with her brother, Dan Zedek (currently the editorial design director at the Boston Globe), to New York to see Smith perform.