The Chainsmokers Got a Frat Party Busted Because of Course They Did

Perennial EDM bros The Chainsmokers played a surprise set at a Phoenix frat party. When the cops showed up, they paid the fine themselves.

Some things never change, one of which being world-famous EDM act The Chainsmokers. The duo comprised of Alex Pall and Drew Taggart recently lived up to their rowdy reputation by playing a surprise set at a Tempe party held by Arizona State University fraternity Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI), attracting unwanted police attention in the process.

Pall and Taggart had come to town on Friday, April 18 to play Breakaway Arizona, dropping by the frat party to perform for free. The text in a video montage the duo posted via Instagram on Sunday suggests that the police showed up “after 13 minutes” to shut the daytime, open-air gathering down.

“Listen up: If you are under the age of 21, I’m gonna tell you to leave right now or I’m gonna start writing tickets and start arresting folks,” an officer can be heard saying to the audience while no music is playing. The duo had only just cued up their 2016 hit, “Roses.”

To The Chainsmokers’ credit, they apparently chipped in to prevent the full brunt of the punishment from falling on the party’s organizers. “But we paid the fine…” reads text superimposed on the next clip in the montage. From there, Pall and Taggart were given a short window to cycle through hits like “Closer” featuring Halsey and a handful of recent remixes.

The “Don’t Let Me Down” hitmakers have been at pains to distance themselves from the excesses tied to them at an earlier point in their career. Referring to a 2016 Billboard cover story that described how the duo “rage every night,” Taggart told the outlet in 2022, “I remember reading that and thinking, ‘I can’t believe this is what people are going to think of us,’ and ‘Do we come off this way?’ I don’t want to be this person, you know?”

We hate to break it to you, The Chainsmokers, but you’re definitely still those DJs. But hey, respect for shelling out to mitigate the aftermath this time around.