The decision to wear a cowboy hat is never made lightly.

It's not like slapping on a seed cap or ball cap with a logo just above the brim. A cowboy hat carries an even louder message; it makes an undeniable statement about the person wearing it, where he comes from and where he wants to go. It's showy. It stands out. It means something. And it almost always has a story behind it. 

Two years ago before stepping foot on stage at The Saddle Creek Bar for the very first Filter Kings gig, frontman Gerald Lee Meyerpeter, Jr., decided it was time to wear a cowboy hat. He knew he was crossing a threshold and there was no turning back. "I was a bit nervous," he said. "I was jumping in with both feet. It was like having my first lap dance."

Meyerpeter was never a country music fan growing up in Council Bluffs, though his dad, Gerald Lee Sr., was. "He was full-on country, that's all he liked," Meyerpeter said, standing a few yards from the Central Park slides where his own son, 7-year-old Logan, was playing with the other kids. "The only rock 'n' roll song my dad liked was 'House of the Rising Sun.'"

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