with the group for about the next year and was featured on their 1979 album Only the Wild Survive. Throughout the 1970s, Ierace was credited by various names on Jaggerz and Wild Cherry albums: by his birth name, Dominic Ierace; Don Ierace; and a stage name he had adopted to make it easier for people to remember his name, Don Iris. By the end of the decade, as far as his music/public life went, he went by the name of Donnie Iris. It was during this period that he became acquainted with Mark Avsec, then playing keyboards for Wild Cherry. Wild Cherry was unable to duplicate the success of "Play That Funky Music" and disbanded by the end of the decade. Becoming good friends, Iris and Avsec decided to form a project together after Wild Cherry's breakup and the two began writing songs. Their first release saw the disco-influenced single "Bring on the Eighties" backed by a cover of "Because of You" in 1979; however it failed to garner attention. They decided to go in a harder direction for their next release and returned to the studio with guitarist Marty Lee Hoenes, bassist Albritton McClain and drummer Kevin Valentine, who at the time was in the band Breathless with Avsec, to record his first full-length album. This line-up would become known as Donnie Iris and the Cruisers. Donnie Iris and the Cruisers' peak years (1980–85) Iris' first album, Back on the Streets, was released in July 1980 on the small Cleveland, Ohio-based Midwest Records. With the track "Ah! Leah!" receiving airplay in Boston, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, MCA Records took notice and quickly signed Iris to a five-album deal and re-released the album nationally in October. The first single "Ah! Leah!" peaked at #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and #34 in Australia) in February 1981 and became one of the most frequently played AOR tracks of the year, and the album reached #57 on the Billboard 200. In addition, the band launched a national tour to promote the album and its follow-up during the summer of 1981. The follow-up album, King Cool, credited to Donnie Iris and the Cruisers, was released in August 1981 and garnered the band more AOR success, with "Love Is Like a Rock" reaching #9 on Billboard's Top Tracks chart. Two other songs from the album received significant AOR airplay; "My Girl" at #25 and "Sweet