Bohemian rhapsodies

Get those labels away from Neon Hitch.

The British pop star doesn’t care for the “bisexual” label, and she probably cares even less for record labels. It’s why she loves playing gay-pride festivals, and it’s all because of her highly unconventional, bohemian upbringing.

Hitch, who performs on Saturday, June 14, at the Sacramento Pride Festival (see sidebar), signed with Warner Bros. Records in 2010. She sang on Gym Class Heroes’ “Ass Back Home”; co-wrote Ke$ha’s hit single, “Blah Blah Blah”; and topped the Billboard Dance Club chart with her own singles, “Luv U Betta” and “Gold.” They’re catchy, synth-heavy and clubbing-ready, but they reveal little about the spunky, pink-haired free spirit who sings them.

But that will change. Last month, Hitch ditched Warner Bros. She told the world by performing a new song, “Warner Blvd,” live on VH1.

On it she sings: “All I need is my freedom, I don’t need no label.”

Her new sound is still pop, but with a colorful, worldly, Gypsy vibe. There’s live instrumentation—trumpet, trombone, drums, guitar—over a tribal beat. It matches her story, and she wants to explore topics of personal significance in her music: breaking down barriers, self-expression, independence, abusive families and stripping are among them.

“I didn’t like feeling held back, so it made more sense to be my own boss,” she told SN&R.

In four years, Hitch never put out a full-length album. There was one promised and much-hyped record, Beg, Borrow, and Steal, originally slated for 2012. The wait exasperated both Hitch and fans. She eventually scrapped it, independently releasing an EP, Happy Neon, and a mixtape, 301 to Paradise, out of frustration instead.

Plus, Hitch says Warner Bros. didn’t let her be herself. She’ll have more of her personality, beliefs and life experiences to share in her self-released debut record. When will it come out? She doesn’t know. And she loves that she doesn’t have to know.

But she does have a name for it: Eleutheromaniac, “Which means ’creature that needs freedom,’ which is me,” she says.

That comes from Hitch’s unusual childhood—Neon Hitch is her real name, after all—as a traveling circus performer.

In Kingston upon Thames, England, her family’s house burned down the day she was born. Her father eventually got a flat in London, but her mother took the rest of the family—Hitch, her siblings and their fathers—on the road.

Conventional schooling also wasn’t an option—Hitch says that classmates desperately stuck to the status quo, and she could never fit in—but she still kept up with the curriculum.

When she was 11, Hitch became the subject of a short BBC documentary related to the legality of wandering families. In it, she’s quick, eloquent and already wise beyond her years. But when Hitch talks about her childhood, she describes herself as an outcast, insecure about being so different.

“Only now do I fully accept and embrace who I am,” she says now. “Not only that, I promote who I am. I’m in a better place.”

Approaching her teens, Hitch learned how to do trapeze and dance with fire. At age 15, she says she ran away to India to escape a turbulent relationship with her stepfather. She loved making jewelry on the streets, but there, she also first felt the need for something very new: a career.

She had performed her whole life, but making music was still foreign to Hitch.

“I remember one day driving, and the heavens opened up,” she says. “And I just got this voice.”

She was 16 at the time, and though it’s hard to imagine, Hitch says she was shy about singing. Eventually, she pushed herself to perform, moving back to the United Kingdom and landing on independent label The Beats Recordings, owned by Mike Skinner of the Streets. At a high point, she got to open for rapper 50 Cent at England’s Nottingham Arena, but then, the label fell apart. She was broke, squatting again, until Amy Winehouse offered her a roof. They got along famously. Now she sports an “Amy” tattoo.

One day—in the car, again—she says she had a psychic vision: She would live in the United States.

“I had never been to the U.S. before, but it was powerful,” she says, laughing. “I really do have psychic abilities. I just need to work on harnessing them.”

Sure enough, Grammy Award-nominated producer Benny Blanco’s manager discovered Hitch on Myspace. He liked her, and wanted her in New York.

“I remember thinking, ’You know I’m homeless, right? Are you really going to pay to fly me out?’”

He indeed paid to fly her out, and before not too long, Warner Bros. signed her. She was 21. Blanco became her producer. She made No. 1 singles, years passed, and now she’s independent again.

Hitch is currently on her “freedom” tour, which takes her to Sacramento Pride this month. She says she feels at home performing for the queer community.

“I just feel like we all believe in the same things: freedom and self-expression,” she says.

Plus, the events are usually big, fun, potentially outrageous affairs. And that’s especially important for Hitch, who doesn’t like to be stiff with choreography, set lists or any real plans at all.

“I feed off the energy of the crowd,” she says. “So if they’re giving me colorful, positive energy, that’s the way I’ll perform.”

Hitch still keeps in touch with her family—her mom continues the wanderlust life and continues to beg Hitch to return to the caravan. But Hitch says her new lifestyle isn’t so different from the way she was raised. The music industry is its own kind of circus.

“There’s more work and stress, sure, but I still travel all the time,” she says. “My home is still where I lay my head scarf.”