They first achieved success with a 1980 self-released single pairing two of their songs, "Wild Summer Nights" and "Tender Years", which sold over 10,000 copies and had radio play up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Despite their success, the act was ignored by the major labels due to persistent critical comparisons to Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. They finally achieved international success when producer Kenny Vance, a longtime fan, offered them the score to a movie soundtrack he was helming based on a best-selling novel about a legendary bar band, Eddie and the Cruisers. Thanks to frequent airings of the film on HBO and the purchase of the soundtrack album by their established fanbase, as well as hundreds of thousands of new converts, Eddie and the Cruisers: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack reached the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, and produced a number 7 hit single ("On the Dark Side") on the Billboard Hot 100. "On the Dark Side" also held number-one on the Album Rock Tracks chart for five weeks. The album was eventually certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
The group's follow-up album Tough All Over (1985) made the top 40, enjoying great sales for "C-I-T-Y" and the title track, which became their second number-one single on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Another song from that album, "Voice of America's Sons", was the featured theme song on the official soundtrack of the action movie Cobra (1986), starring Sylvester Stallone, and Cafferty's solo track "Heart's on Fire" was featured in another Stallone movie, Rocky IV (1985).
The band's next album, the self-produced Roadhouse, sold well to their fan base but did not reach the sales heights of Tough All Over. In 1989, they followed it with the score to an "Eddie" sequel, Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! which became their last major label release of new material.

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