The Chainsmokers Break Free After 11 Years

The Chainsmokers have gone independent after ending an 11-year run with Columbia Records and Disruptor Records. Drew Taggart and Alex Pall confirmed the split in a joint statement on 13 October, closing the label relationship that began with their 2015 single “Good Intentions” and carried them through their biggest commercial period.

The statement is grateful, not combative. The duo thanked the Columbia/Disruptor team for “a decade plus of hard work” and said they are excited to experiment with future releases. They also said they have no idea what to expect from the next chapter. Their announcement does not name a new label, distributor, release date or project.

Billboard reports that the partnership covered five studio albums and the crossover run of “Roses,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” “Closer” and “Something Just Like This.” Their latest Columbia/Disruptor release was the Love Is Kind EP in May. That catalogue gives the departure more weight than a routine contract change: it closes the business relationship behind the act’s defining mainstream era.

Disruptor Records was founded by Adam Alpert, the duo’s former manager, as a joint venture with Sony. Taggart and Pall had already ended their management relationship with Alpert in 2025. The label exit therefore follows a wider reorganisation around the project rather than arriving as a standalone update.

Alex Pall had pointed to that reset before the announcement. In a LinkedIn post reported by Digital Music News, he said the team around The Chainsmokers had changed substantially and described the shift as a search for fresh perspective, rather than a judgement on the people who had worked with them before. He said new people were helping the pair spend more time thinking about what they wanted the next chapter to look like.

That context also makes the duo’s careful language important. They thanked the former team, said they owed fans more records, and presented the change as an opening to make new decisions around the music. Neither their statement nor the reporting turns the split into a feud. It is a business reset with the details still to come, after more than a decade inside the same label structure.

Independence gives a major act more room to decide the pace, partners and shape of a campaign. It also moves the practical questions to the foreground. Distribution, promotion and the timing of the next release have not been announced, so it is too early to claim a new model or strategy. The only confirmed change is that the duo are no longer with Columbia/Disruptor.

That makes the first release after the split the meaningful next marker. It will show whether Taggart and Pall choose another partnership, a self-directed release model or something between the two. Until the pair say more, the story is the break itself, not a promised reinvention.

For dance music, the move is a reminder that even a globally established act can revisit how its releases and team are structured. The Chainsmokers’ statement leaves the next steps open. Read more across the Dance Music Tribe network.