During his recuperation from the knee injury, Ant worked with Pirroni on new material that formed the basis of Ant's second solo album Strip. With promotion on the Strip album complete, Ant reduced his band to the quartet of himself, Pirroni (now out of retirement again), Wiczling and Constantinou. The latter two adopted the stage names "Count" Wiczling and Chris "De Niro" respectively and were upgraded from live backing musicians to being full-time band members, featured on record sleeves, logos and even in song lyrics. The LP "Strip" produced a top ten single, "Puss'n'boots", which reached no.5 in October 1983. Ant formally unveiled a new four-piece band at the 1984 Montreux Pop Festival,