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Skylyne Spotlight: Ethansroom

Inside Ethansroom’s private world of bedroom honesty, Nashville growth, and songs that look closer and closer inward

Skylyne Spotlight: Ethansroom

Ethansroom standing in a green garden under leafy trees, wearing a blue jacket and white pants in a sunlit outdoor portrait.

Welcome to Ethan’s room. There’s a guitar close by, a little light creature wandering through the corners, and the kind of songs that sound like they were written after a long day of holding too much in. Ethansroom pulled me in because the music has a bedroom’s honesty - private and almost guarded.


Behind Ethansroom is Ethan Fortenberry, a producer, artist and singer-songwriter. At eighteen, he packed what he had into his car and moved to Nashville, following a feeling that music was already waiting for him there. Since then, Ethansroom has grown through EPs, full-length projects, millions of streams, and a visual world that reaches beyond songs.


In our conversation, we got a chance to talk about the meaning behind his room, his music journey, and the new music he is preparing to release next.



Skylyne: Hi Ethan, thank you so much for joining us. I’m really excited to talk with you. I want to start with the idea behind your project name Ethansroom. When you think about your own room, either now or growing up, what kind of place has it been for you?


Ethansroom: My room has often felt like the only place I can be and feel like myself. It’s who I am when I wake up, and who I am when I go to bed. It’s been a place where I don’t have to feel bad when I’m feeling bad.


Skylyne: I really love that. It makes the name feel even more personal. When did songs start feeling like a place where you could put the thoughts you did not know what to do with?


Ethansroom: I didn’t start writing songs until I was 18, so it’s felt like that from the beginning. I thought I’d grown out of my shyness, but my songs taught me that I just got better at acting. Songwriting is how I balance my internal world with the parts of my life where it feels like I’m acting, if that makes sense? Haha, acting extroverted is exhausting.


Skylyne: That makes a lot of sense, honestly. Before you started writing songs, guitar came into your life much earlier. You've said that you first picked up guitar when you were ten after finding your grandfather’s old Yamaha in the attic. Do you remember what that moment felt like?


Ethansroom: I remember it feeling like it was my “thing” automatically. When I was 10, I wanted a hamster. I wanted a skateboard. But when I found the guitar, it felt like I had already had it. I actually used that guitar in a session yesterday, haha.


Skylyne: That is so special. Your story mentions that you moved to Nashville when you were eighteen with what little you had packed in your car. Looking back, what do you think that version of you was searching for?


Ethansroom: I knew before I got there that what I was looking for was there. I didn’t have a big dream or anything like that, though. More like you’ve been reading a book that you love from an author you trust, and you know wherever it goes next is going to be “it.” Nashville was “it” for me.


Skylyne: Now that you’ve been in Nashville for a while, what did the city actually give you?


Ethansroom: The unexpected. I didn’t expect it to take this long for music to work out. Still waiting. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m growing into someone I’m learning to love, and my music is a byproduct of that.


Skylyne: That is such a real answer. I feel like a lot of artists know that “still waiting” feeling so well, Has being in Nashville changed what you believe you are capable of?


Ethansroom: I’ve already reached 18-year-old Ethan’s ceiling. Now it’s my floor. I had no idea just how big this whole music thing could get, and I never expected to have the confidence to chase it down the way I am now.


Ethansroom sitting in a sunlit grassy field, wearing a blue shirt and white pants with trees and a white building in the background.

Skylyne: You’ve built Ethansroom from such an intimate idea, but now the music has reached millions of streams and you’ve played in so many different kinds of rooms. Does the project still feel as private as it did when it started?


Ethansroom: It feels even more private. If writing a song is having eyes on what goes on inside you, then writing more songs means you’re looking closer and closer. I’m more in touch with myself now than I ever have been.


Skylyne: That actually makes me want to ask more about the word “room.” For some people, “bedroom pop” is just a sound or a production style. For you, does “room” mean a sound, a feeling, or a whole way of seeing yourself?


Ethansroom: Rooms are just things we inhabit. I think you can inhabit all three.


Skylyne: I also wanted to ask about the little yellow star-looking creature that appears around your releases. It feels like such a specific part of the Ethansroom world. What’s the story behind that character?


Ethansroom: His name is Helio. He’s made of light. I feel like a lot of ULTRA LIGHT was me sonically time traveling to places I felt like Helio might have been. There’s a lot about him, actually. If anyone’s interested, they can go through my page to see all the cool powers he has and all that.


Skylyne: I love that Helio has his own world and powers. It really shows that Ethansroom is bigger than just songs. Looking back, what is something about your younger songwriting self that you still want to protect? And what is something you had to outgrow?


Ethansroom: I want to protect the parts of myself I never showed anyone. I want to make the crazy fingerpicking project that I thought was too gimmicky to use on my own projects. It’s not gimmicky at all, and I think I needed to outgrow that. I kept trying to make music that was anything but that because I thought it wasn’t cool enough. I’ve been almost exclusively writing that kind of stuff recently, and I can’t wait to show everyone.


Ethansroom standing alone in a wide green field, wearing a blue shirt and white pants in a distant outdoor portrait.

Skylyne: That makes me really excited for what’s coming next. You’ve played everywhere from smaller rooms to much bigger, more historic stages. What does a small room give you that a bigger stage cannot?


Ethansroom: Presence. Those bigger rooms can feel like you’re supposed to be getting something out of it, and that feeling alone is enough to dissociate you from the experience. In a smaller room, you can feel the individual energies of each person.


Skylyne: When you are on a bigger stage, do you still try to make it feel like people are sitting inside the room with you?


Ethansroom: Not really, to be honest. It’ll feel however it feels. I’m not going to force a feeling onto any situation.


Skylyne: If someone is discovering Ethansroom for the first time, what is THE song you would want them to start with?


Ethansroom: “OLD FRIENDS” or “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” Those are the two sides to myself I feel best represent what I’m trying to do.


Skylyne: Thank you so much again for taking the time to answer these so thoughtfully. To close things out, here’s your spotlight: what do you have going on right now, and what should people be looking forward to next?


Ethansroom: I’m working on a lot of new music right now. The first single to whatever this next project is is called “100 MILLION,” and it comes out August 7.


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