Fortman joined Ugly Kid Joe in 1992 replacing Roger Lahr, and played guitar on their multi-platinum-selling album America's Least Wanted.

Fortman played and wrote with Ugly Kid Joe until their demise in 1997, including multiple songwriting credits on the albums Menace to Sobriety and Motel California.

After the band reformed in 2011, Fortman played guitar and produced their most recent EP Stairway to Hell in 2012 as well as their full-length album Uglier Than They Used ta Be in 2015.

[5] In 2002, Wind Up's owners Alan and Diana Meltzer hired Fortman to produce Evanescence, a then-unknown band from Little Rock, Arkansas.

In the summer of 2004, Fortman produced Mudvayne's Lost and Found which debuted at number 2 on the Billboard charts[6] and sold over 1 million copies.

In late 2007, Fortman was hired to produce Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone, which upon its release in 2009 spawned five singles, including "Snuff" and "Psychosocial".