Alexander "Alex" Pall born on (1985-05-16) May 16, 1985 (age 32) was raised in Westchester County, New York. His mother is a housewife and his Father is an art dealer.

Andrew "Drew" Taggart born on (1989-12-31) December 31, 1989 (age 28) was raised in Freeport, Maine. His mother is a Teacher and his Father sold prosthetics. He was turned onto EDM at the age of 15 while abroad in Argentina, where he was introduced to the music of David Guetta, Daft Punk and Trentemøller.

The Chainsmokers were initially made up of Pall and former DJ Rhett Bixler. The Chainsmokers were re-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. Pall attended New York University for art history and music Business. 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. They started out by making remixes of indie bands. 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.

The duo's first live performance was opening for Timeflies at Terminal 5 in September 2014. 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. The duo achieved breakthrough success as the single charted internationally and peaked on the Dance/Electronic Songs chart. Pall has described the song as "life-changing" for the pair. 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. They signed with Disruptor Records, a joint venture label with Sony Music Entertainment by their manager Adam Alpert, in April 2015.

On May 18, 2015, The Chainsmokers released the single "Good Intentions", with their follow-up single, "Roses", being released a month later on June 16. "Roses" became a comercial success, certifying multiplatinum in several countries including the duo's native United States. Further singles included "Waterbed" and a collaboration with Dutch DJ Tiësto entitled "Split (Only U)", in addition to another comercial successful single, "Until You Were Gone", which was released on September 18, 2015. These songs (except "Split (Only U)") featured on the group's debut EP , Bouquet, which was released on October 23, 2015.. A week later the song "New York City" was released as the fifth and final single from the EP.

On February 5, 2016 the duo released a new single "Don't Let Me Down" which featured vocals from the singer Daya. 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, where they publicly denounced presidential candidate Donald Trump. 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. The track was also performed at the 2016 MTV VMAs. The performance was met with mostly negative reception. The New York Times, Rolling Stone and Us Weekly referred to the performance as the worst of the night. Taggart himself stated in an interview with Billboard that "It sounded like shit." "All We Know" featuring Phoebe Ryan was released on September 29, 2016. In October 2016, the Chainsmokers were ranked 18th in DJ Magazine's annual list of the "Top 100 DJs" after debuting on the list at 97th in 2014. The two initially stated that they had no plans to release a debut studio album. They released their second extended play Collage on November 4, 2016.

On February 14, 2017, the duo announced during an on-screen Grammy red carpet interview that their debut album would be titled Memories...Do Not Open and would be released on April 7, 2017, via Disruptor/Sony. The Chainsmokers' collaborative single with Coldplay "Something Just Like This" was released in February 2017. The single was released simultaneously to The Chainsmokers performance with Coldplay at the 2017 Brit Awards. “Something Just Like This” broke the record for most views of a lyric video in one day with 9 million plays. They released "The One" as a promotional single from their debut studio album on March 27, 2017. Memories...Do Not Open was released on April 7, 2017 via Disruptor Records/Columbia Records. Memories...Do Not Open debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 221,000 album-equivalent units, of which 166,000 were pure album sales. The album was certified platinum in August 2017. The same month saw The Chainsmokers listed as third on Forbes' World's Highest Paid DJs list for 2017 with earnings of $38 million, from 12 months prior to June 2017.

In March 2018, Billboard named The Chainsmokers as number one on their 2018 ranking of dance Musicians titled Billboard Dance 100.