The Chainsmokers were initially made up of Pall and former DJ Rhett Bixler.^[4]

The Chainsmokers were formed as an EDM DJ duo in 2012 under the management of Adam Alpert in New York City. Pall, who had grown up DJing, was introduced to Taggart by Alpert, and had been working at an art gallery in Chelsea, Manhattan at the time.^[4] Pall attended New York University for art history and music business.^[5] Taggart had been attending Syracuse University and was interning at Interscope Records before the two met. He had taken an interest in DJing and released some original songs on the website SoundCloud. Taggart was informed by someone working for Alpert that a duo that was being managed by him had an open spot after Bixler left, which prompted Taggart to leave Maine in order to go to New York City.^[6] They started out by making remixes of indie bands.^[7] In 2012, they collaborated with Indian actress and recording artist Priyanka Chopra on the single "Erase" which was followed by "The Rookie" in early 2013.^[8]

The duo's first live performance was opening for Timeflies at Terminal 5 in September 2014.^[5] Their single "#Selfie", released for free in December 2013, was picked up by Dim Mak Records who re-released it in January 2014 and eventually streamed it to Republic Records.^[9] The duo achieved breakthrough success as the single charted internationally and peaked on the Dance/Electronic Songs chart.^[10] Pall has described the song as "life-changing" for the pair.^[11] On August 5, 2014, The Chainsmokers released "Kanye" featuring sirenXX, the follow-up to "#Selfie". Seven months later, they released "Let You Go", featuring the American synthpop group, Great Good Fine Ok.^[12] They signed with Disruptor Records, a joint venture label with Sony Music Entertainment by their manager Adam Alpert, in April 2015.^[13]

The Chainsmokers released their first EP titled Bouquet, featuring "New York City", "Until You Were Gone", "Waterbed", "Good Intentions", and "Roses".^[14] Their follow-up single "Don't Let Me Down", was released on February 5, 2016, featuring the singer Daya.^[9] Two months later, they released the single, "Inside Out", featuring the Swedish singer Charlee.

On March 19, 2016, the group played at Ultra Music Festival,^[15] where they publicly denounced presidential candidate Donald Trump.^[16] On July 29, 2016, they released "Closer" featuring singer Halsey, which peaked at number one in the United States and United Kingdom, in addition to charts in eleven other countries.^[2] The track was also performed at the 2016 MTV VMAs.^[17] The performance was met with mostly negative reception. Multiple publications including The New York Times, Rolling Stone and Us Weekly referred to the performance as the worst of the night.^[18][19][20] Taggart himself stated in an interview with Billboard that "It sounded like shit."^[3] "All We Know" featuring Phoebe Ryan was released on September 29, 2016.^[21] In October 2016, The Chainsmokers were ranked 18th in DJ Magazine's annual list of the "Top 100 DJs"^[22]after debuting on the list at 97th in 2014.^[23]

The two have stated that they have no plans to release a debut album.^[24]