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Cray and the band released their first album in 1980, an event that was followed six months later by the collapse of the record company. One of the producers founded a new label, which handled the next albums, and now with Mercury/ Hightone shepherding Cray into the mainstream, things have stayed solid. "We've always stepped out of bounds," Cray says, "simply because the music we were playing didn't have a lot of commercial appeal." After Strong Persuader, that's starting to be history.