It’s safe to say that Neon Hitch has taken the path least traveled to fame. As a young girl she traveled around Europe with her parents and never stayed in one place for very long. While most of us were still getting the hang of walking upright Neon started training as a trapeze artist with the Archaos circus. Luckily for us I was able to catch her on the phone while she lounged in her garden in New York.

(read more after the jump)

Before you ask, yes– Neon is her real birth name, though she loves her name now she didn’t always feel that way. “It was horrible, I hated it. I was a huge spice girls fan so I wanted to change my name to Melanie after sporty spice and my mom was like ‘listen, you’re going to like your name one day’ and I was like mum I hate you! You gave me a stupid name, what’s wrong with you… But yeah, I got picked on as a kid but you get picked on as a kid for anything,” explained Neon.

Neon has been making music for a long time; she started writing poetry at around ten years old, the poems later morphed into lyrics as she grew older. However, some of the covers that she has put out recently have caused hip hop fans to take notice of her. She has covered songs by Mac Miller, Wiz Khalifa and Kreayshawn which have each respectively garnered several thousand hits on youtube. The songs differ drastically from what she would write herself but Neon viewed it as a challenge; “I love hip hop, it’s not my musical style but I think to cover a song you have to take something that’s not your own style. So I took songs that were far from my style that I could truly put myself into,” she explained.

Of course covering other artists’ songs is not Neon’s main focus– she is also working on her own album, Beg, Borrow and Steal, which she began recording last year with Benny Blanco. At the time of the interview there was no release date yet, however, “we’re just about finished. We’re just putting the finishing touches on. We’re going to put out two or even three singles before the album first,” said Neon. People can expect to hear Bruno Mars, Sia and Imogen Heap on the album as well.

When Ms. Hitch is not making music she can be found making clothes, meditating, or just generally relaxing. Many people would be surprised to learn of the calm existence Neon leads when she is not on stage, “there are so many different sides to me. I’m actually a pretty chill person, I’m not like a wild party head. On stage I’m a crazy party head but I’m really healthy. I love to do yoga. I’m totally totally chilled behind the scenes. I definitely have a split personality of like private life and performance life but I think you definitely need that balance otherwise you go crazy,” Neon said.

Many of the clothes Neon is seen wearing she created herself, “I love to make my own clothes, my mum taught me how to make clothes when I was a kid. We never had money so she was always like ‘just make it yourself’ so I’ve always been very creative with materials.” After the release of her album she plans on pursuing her own clothing line; “I used to make clothes and sell them on the market, which isn’t exactly a line of course. When my album is out and things are calm I’m definitely going to branch out and start a label.” Her signature item that she can’t live without? A headdress, “I need to put something on my head. Usually a mushroom headdress or some kind of feather headdress. Some kind of headdress.”

Neon’s Buddhist upbringing has influenced her as an artist, before every show she and her band meditate together, “I’m not really like religious but I really believe in meditation. You can be of any religion and meditate, it’s just about centering yourself. It gets us focused and then we go on stage and we just have an amazing time,” explained Neon.

Neon Hitch has just wrapped up a small club tour but we can expect her to be touring again around the release of her album. In the meantime keep up with her on twitter: @NeonHitch.