Carter and Barthel have been friends since preschool. Dissatisfied with pursuing a
visual arts degree at
Champlain College in Vermont, Barthel returned home in 2007 and reconnected with Carter after he returned from a brief stint in
New York City with Grand Habit, an experimental band formed with his older brother, John. The two worked on finishing some of Carter's earlier songwriting ideas and formed the band,
Charlie Everywhere. They played some live shows, but decided to focus the bulk of their energies on making records. The duo originally chose the name Charlie Everywhere and performed around the
Saratoga Springs, New York area. They released two
EPs on local label
Sub-Bombin Records. Carter suggested the name Phantogram when the band wanted to switch from Charlie Everywhere to "something [they] liked". Upon looking up
phantogram, they found that it referred to an
optical illusion in which two-dimensional images appear to be
three-dimensional, and noted parallels between this meaning and their band and music. An eponymous debut EP was self-released on the CE Records label on May 12, 2009, followed in the same year by another EP,
Running From the Cops, issued on BBE. After encouragement from Erich Cannon of Portland's Spectre Entertainment, who heard songs on their
MySpace page and contacted them, they signed with
Barsuk Records in October 2009, "We were going to write the record, finish it, and release it as a demo for upstate," explained Barthel. "Then our plan was to move down to New York [City] to do the whole networking and meeting people kind of stuff. And we kind of skipped that whole thing, just because of the internet." Phantogram released their debut album,
Eyelid Movies, on September 15, 2009, with BBE in Europe and Indica Records in Canada. Barsuk released the album in the United States on February 9, 2010, and it received generally favorable reviews. The album included three singles: "Mouthful of Diamonds", "When I'm Small" and "As Far as I Can See". For tours, they enlisted drummer Tim Oakley, formerly of the Mathematicians (where he played under the name Albert Gorithm IV), starting in 2010. A new EP,
Nightlife, was released on November 1, 2011, which included the single "Don't Move". The following year, the duo collaborated with
Big Boi from
OutKast on three songs ("Objectum Sexuality", "CPU" and "Lines") from his second studio album,
Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, released in December 2012, and were credited as producers for the song "Objectum Sexuality". Phantogram were also featured on
the Flaming Lips song "You Lust" from their 2013 album
The Terror. Nicholas Shelestak, a guitarist/synth player, was added to the touring band in 2013, while Chris Carhart replaced Oakley on drums. They opened for
M83 at the
Hollywood Bowl on September 22, 2013.
Republic Records released the
Phantogram EP, along with the single "Black Out Days", on September 30, 2013. The band's second studio album,
Voices, followed on February 18, 2014, by Barsuk/Republic, which included the singles "Bill Murray", "Fall in Love", and "Nothing But Trouble". The band opened for
Alt-J at
Madison Square Garden on March 30, 2015. They contributed the song "K.Y.S.A" to the
Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack in 2015; the track appeared in "The Lab" radio station, and was also included on the digital and physical versions of the
Welcome to Los Santos album. The same year, Phantogram collaborated with Big Boi again, resulting in the seven-song EP
Big Grams, released on September 25, 2015, by
Epic Records. The EP featured production work from Big Boi, Phantogram,
9th Wonder and
Skrillex. Barthel also guest-appeared on the
Miley Cyrus song "Slab of Butter (Scorpion)" from her album
Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz. They toured the
West Coast with
Muse in December, and again during the European leg of the
Drones World Tour the following April. Both members suffered when Barthel's sister, Becky, took her own life in January 2016. The loss greatly impacted the duo, and influenced their third album,
Three. The record was released October 7, 2016 by Republic, and debuted at No. 5 on the
Billboard Top Album Sales chart and No. 9 on the
Billboard 200. It included the singles "You Don't Get Me High Anymore", "Run Run Blood", "Cruel World" and "Same Old Blues". Phantogram performed at the summer 2017
WayHome Music & Arts Festival in
Oro-Medonte,
Ontario. A single, "Someday", was released on May 18, 2018, backed by a cover of
Sparklehorse's "Saturday"; all proceeds from the single were earmarked for donation to the
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in memory of Barthel's sister. Later in the same month, they released the single "Me & Me", accompanying the
Netflix film ''
A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting. Tom Morello featured the band on his song "Driving to Texas", from the 2021 album The Atlas Underground Fire''. A reissue of
Eyelid Movies was announced in 2022 and they released the song "Suzie", an outtake from the recording sessions of
Eyelid Movies, as an accompanying single. The duo's fifth studio album,
Memory of a Day, was released on October 18, 2024, which included singles "All a Mystery," "Happy Again," "Come Alive," and "It Wasn't Meant to Be." ==Style and influences==