Arts and Culture Videos

In the summer of 1979, The Cowboys hit the Seattle music scene, playing their first gig on the stage of Washington Performance Hall. The scrappy rock-and-roll foursome—Jeff Cerar, Ian Fischer, Jack Hanan, and Dean Helgeson—quickly attracted a devoted fan base and, over the next seven years, with some lineup changes along the way, played sold-out shows up and down the West Coast. The band broke up in 1985, and when lead singer Ian Fischer died in 2007, hopes for a reunion faded away. That changed in the fall of 2025, when original bassist Jack Hanan, joined by guitarist Ernie Sapiro, drummer Marty Waychoff, and Rick Smith on guitar and lead vocals, wowed the crowd with an unforgettable performance at Tacoma’s Spanish Ballroom.