Back in 2022, a new pop star debuted in Cleveland who actually wasn’t new at all. Chayla Hope had been the driving force behind Cleveland indie rockers Seafair from 2011 through around 2018, a band many tabbed for breakout success which, alas, never happened as they just lost momentum.
Then Hope reappeared with a totally different look and style: she reinvented herself as a glamorous, platinum-blonde pop diva, releasing a pair of highly produced, beat-heavy singles, the bubbly “Love in Lo-Fi” and the new “Falling,” that draw heavily on 80s and 90s synth pop. But her chest-thumping, soul-baring vocals still betrayed her roots as an indie rocker. Her debut solo album, Damn, Feelings, came out in late 2022.
Now she’s got a second album, released in late February, called Mess of a Woman, on which she was producer, songwriter and singer. The title is appropriate for the performer now, whose delivery and stage style are confessional and uninhibited, something that makes her audiences react with fervor and dedication. She says that the title comes from a hate comment she got online that said, “What a voice, what a tattooed mess of a woman.”
“Instead of shrinking from it, I decided to own it,” she says. “This album is me embracing every piece of who I am—producer, songwriter, artist, human—and turning it into something powerful.”
Among the promotions for the album are a limited-edition beer by Saucy Brew works as part of their Artist Collective series, describes as “bursting with a massive hop aroma from the ‘mess’ of Columbus, Citra, Simcoe, Idaho 7, and Amarillo CRYO, all wrapped in a full-bodied, powerful IPA that mirrors the raw emotion and resilience found in Hope’s music.” She also created a variety of custom vinyl pressings of the record, some hand-pressed by Hope herself, who once worked as a press operator at Gotta Groove Records where the new vinyl records were made. (Some are sold out, but some are still available.) And she also worked with artist Emily Mistica on an eight-page comic, also called Mess of a Woman.