Deep roots: Taos' Max Gomez brings his blend of Americana music to Outpost Performance Space

When people hear Max Gomez’s music they can hear hints of singer and songwriters that came before him and molded his sound.

“I would describe it as within the tradition of American singer-songwriters in the vein of Jackson Browne and John Prine, my heroes that I look up to,” he said. “I learned to play guitar by studying roots music, roots blues music and country music as well, like old music, like Big Bill Broonzy and Robert Johnson, and of course, country greats like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, and now I get to tell stories and write love songs and humorous songs that sort of blend all those influences together.”

Deep roots: Taos' Max Gomez brings his blend of Americana music to Outpost Performance Space

Gomez received critical acclaim for his 2013 debut album, “Rule The World” and his EP, “Me and Joe” released in 2017, which was produced by Jim Scott, who worked with Johnny Cash, Tom Petty and Lucinda Williams. His song “Make It Me,” has gained more than 4 million listeners on Spotify.

Gomez has shared the stage with the likes of James McMurtry, Buddy Miller, John Hiatt, Patty Griffin, Tommy James & The Shondells, Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp. His album, “Memory Mountain,” released in September, features a special song for New Mexico.

Audiences can take in Gomez’s catalog of work on Saturday, Dec. 14, at the Outpost Performance Space.

“I’m from Taos originally, so I play in New Mexico quite a lot because of my family and just my growing up there and starting to play music there has kept me coming back and performing there to be close to home,” he said.

“The Outpost is a wonderful little listening room jazz theater. (It is a) community theater in central Albuquerque and it’s a perfect venue for me to perform and tell stories about the songs and to perform in a stripped down situation like solo acoustic, which is how I’m going to be performing on the 14th, solo acoustics. It’s just me and a guitar. It’ll be an intimate, up close show.”

The Outpost show will be a combination of old and new music from Gomez’s repertoire.

“I tend to perform a little bit off the cuff,” he said. “I often throw in old, classic American singer-songwriter songs, old country songs, things like that. I really don’t even know what might happen, aside from a definite mixture of some of my older material and some of the newer material.”

Gomez’s influences from childhood to adulthood remain his inspiration in his songwriting.

“It was the music that I was exposed to as a kid that I gravitated toward because there was this sort of deeply personal undertone in the songs. Whether it be blues and heartache that BB King would have, you know, crying and moaning the blues, or whether it be like a hidden message in a John Prine song, where maybe he was too shy to just come out and say exactly how he felt, but he found a way to convey it that he felt safe within those sort of personal powerful messages within music that that tends to be something that inspires me. They tend to share a lot of their fair share, and then some of that power, if you will.”