“I would drown out the cries/With redemption songs/I’d part the truth from the lies/And the right from the wrong.” “If I Could Rule the World”
Max Gomez is a 23-year-old singer/songwriter from Taos, NM, with the soul of someone much older and the ability to tap the child-like wonder in all of us.
“I feel the time has come/It’s underneath my thumb/Maybe I don’t stand a chance,” he sings in a Coldplay-like falsetto on “If I Could Rule the World,” his new single, produced by David Kahne [Paul McCartney, Regina Spektor], a song which takes us back to the fairy tales of our childhood, inspired by an evening in Nashville Gomez spent on his friends couch watching the animated Disney feature Aladdin.
“The triumphant strings on the end credits gave me this idea to evoke the same feeling we got as kids watching those kinds of movies,” explains Max. “Still in that moment, I wrote the song in what seemed like 10 minutes.”
Taking a page from his old-school Americana influences, the gravelly voiced baritone crooner got his start as a working musician singing Johnny Cash’s version of Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” counting those two, as well as Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, Neil Young and Tom Petty, along with roots like Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy and B.B. King, among his favorites.
“I’m influenced by the old stuff,” he admits, with songs like Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty” and the ‘30s standard “When Did You Leave Heaven?” in his live repertoire. “To me, that’s the best music. I just don’t find any of the new stuff that interesting.”
You can hear that in the hushed strains of “Careless Love,” whose plaintive quality evokes Neil Young. “That song came about by accident,” he explains. “I was living in this house in Pasadena with plenty of other roommates. It was real late and everyone was sleeping, so I had to sing it in this real soft, quiet whisper, kind of straining my voice, which added a certain intimacy. It was about a girlfriend,” he says, pleased with lyrics like “A breath of smoke/And careless love/Makes me feel alright.”
The impressionistic “Black and White,” named by the popular talent site OurStage.com as its Song of the Month, offers a search for life’s meaning (“I could fall into the light/Just to see with clarity/Cause this whole world’s so black and white/I swear it’s killing me”), highlighting the quest with a series of dream-like images (“The man upon the moon/Popped his last balloon”) and questions (“Why do we have to fight/To live with one another”). The song was also heard in the 2009 indie horror film The House That Jack Built, starring Joe Mategna.
“I try to be more of a disguised lyricist,” says Gomez, who first picked up his brother’s electric guitar when he was 9, then began writing songs as a teenager. “The stuff I write is not real straightforward. You have to decode it. I like when the listener has to create their own story, rather than be told what’s happening.”
The son of a Portuguese/Spanish father and an Irish/Scottish mom, Gomez grew up in Taos, a beautiful town which sits at 7,000 feet, surrounded by peaks twice as high, an artsy community whose culture is influenced by its Native American population and old world Spanish adobe buildings.
After attending the Recording Artist Program in Hollywood, where he learned about recording, writing and the business side of the music industry, Gomez divided his time between his hometown, Nashville, L.A. and Atlanta, where he began collaborating with fellow singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins. The two have co-written four songs, three of which are slated to appear on Mullins’ next album.
For now, the singer/songwriter is busy playing shows in the New Mexico area, while continuing to hone his craft.
“I’m doing things the old-school way, not necessarily the L.A. record deal way,” says Max. “Not that I’m against it, but I’m just trying to stay true to who I am—a working musician.”
But one with a talent that lives up to those who came before him. What you see is what you get with Max Gomez. His time has come.