‘It’s a Different Kind of Feeling’: Sombr Makes His Entrance

A few days before Shane Michael Boose—the 20-year-old musician known as Sombr—stole the show at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards , performing his hits “Back to Friends” and “12 to 12” for his biggest—and most staggeringly starry—audience yet, he found himself in a stately room on the second floor of New York’s Nine Orchard hotel.

Enjoying some rare downtime between rehearsals, he was dressed in a navy blazer, a black T-shirt, and ripped jeans. Despite his high-pressure weekend, he’s in a cheery mood. “You’re getting happy Sombr today,” he tells me, pleasantly.

And why might that be? For one thing, he’s just met one of his rock idols at the hotel, which sits just around the corner from where Boose grew up, on New York’s Lower East Side. “It’s someone I get compared to a lot, and he s