A documentary celebrating Austin punk legends The Big Boys premieres Sunday, June 21 — fittingly on Go Skate Day, a connection their guitarist Tim Kerr says is no coincidence.
“Big Boys would have never started if it wasn’t for skating,” Kerr told Texas Standard. “Everybody that skates, get out there and get on your board.”
Kerr playing guitar with The Big Boys in an undated photo. Courtesy of Pat Blashill
The film, “You Can Color Outside the Lines,” revisits the band’s outsized influence on punk, skateboarding and Austin’s creative culture. But Kerr is quick to push back on the idea that the Big Boys were ever interested in fitting neatly into the punk scene.
“When this all first started, there really wasn’t any kind of rules,” he said. “With self-expression, you’re not supposed to be having any rules.”
Looking back, Kerr remembers an Austin creative community that was much smaller than its mythology suggests — musicians, skaters, artists and zine publishers making things simply because they wanted to.
His message today remains much the same as it was when the Big Boys closed their shows: “Go start your own band.”
A lifetime of making things
Since the Big Boys, Kerr has never stopped creating. His résumé spans bands including Poison 13, The Lord High Fixers and more, along with decades of painting, photography, murals and old-time music. His newest project is the bluegrass-inflected folk of Up Around The Sun.
Kerr says he signs his artwork with an invitation for viewers to become creators themselves.
“Everybody has their own self-expression that they can do something with,” Kerr says og his decision to sign his artwork “Your Name Here.” Courtesy of Tim Kerr
“If you’re looking at the bottom of this thing to see who did this and you see ‘Your Name Here,’ it’s like, yep — come on,” he said. “You can make clothes, you can do radio shows, you can do music. Everybody has their own self-expression.”
That philosophy has held firm as Kerr undergoes chemotherapy. Rather than changing his outlook, he says the experience has reinforced something he learned years ago: Celebrate the people around you while you can.
“During Lord High Fixers, [vocalist Mike Carroll] had been gone. And when he came back, nobody knew exactly what had happened — he could have easily been dead or whatever,” Kerr said. “And when he came back, it was that realization that here’s somebody that you really loved and they’re back in your life. And that means that this could be the last time me and you are sitting here talking right now, so you better hug and celebrate things that are happening all around you at that point in time because you don’t know what’s gonna happen next.“
As for what’s next? Kerr isn’t interested in reliving the past.
“I hope I haven’t seen the best thing yet,” he said.
“You Can Color Outside the Lines” premieres June 21 — Go Skate Day — at 29th Street Ballroom in Austin.
