Poolside began as the recording project of Filip Nikolic and Jeffrey Paradise in a converted Los Angeles backyard pool house in early 2011, producing sunny tracks of subaquatic indie dance music in this makeshift recording studio. Surfacing first in the form of a YouTube video for the catchy track "Do You Believe?" Poolside were soon gaining local and national attention, with DJs like James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, techno legend Derrick May, and disco don Todd Terje spinning these tracks at events and a growing online following. Throughout 2011 Poolside continued making waves with a sound called "daytime disco" through tracks like their cover of Neil Young's "Harvest Moon" and original tunes. In 2012 Poolside worked on a remix for longtime disco punks The Rapture and held fans over with a new single and video for a song called "Slow Down" as they prepared to release their debut album. That album, Pacific Standard Time, was self-released in July of 2012.

After the album's release, remixes for artists like Matthew Dear, Little Dragon and Fool's Gold soon followed, as well as rehearsing and touring with a live band and doing DJ sets around the world. As thoughts turned to a second album, Poolside went on ice for a year to regroup, beginning to work in earnest on another album in the Fall of 2016. While still revolving around the sunny, laid-back disco sound of PST, these sessions yielded the additions of up-tempo dance songs and more guitars, and generally more fleshed-out arrangements. Poolside surprise released their second album Heat in 2017.

In 2018 Poolside introduced their new live band comprised of band leader Jeffrey Paradise on guitar and vocals, Vito Roccoforte (The Rapture) on drums, Mattie Safer (The Rapture) on bass and vocals, Brijean Murphy (Toro Y Moi, U.S. Girls) on congas, bongos, auxiliary percussion and vocals and Casey Butler (Pharaohs) on keyboard, saxophone, lap steel and flute. They toured North America extensively, selling out headline shows in New York City (Music Hall of Williamsburg), Los Angeles (Teragram Ballroom), Portland, OR (Crystal Ballroom) and San Francisco (The Independent – two nights) as well as appearing at numerous major festivals, including Outside Lands, Life Is Beautiful, Hangout Festival, Bumbershoot and more. They also released high profile remixes for Rhye, Tycho and Miami Horror.

Poolside returned in July of 2019 with "Can't Stop Your Lovin' (feat. Panama)," their first new music in over two years and the first song produced solely by Jeffrey Paradise following the departure of co-founding member Filip Nikolic in 2017. They spent the summer and fall touring with Kacey Musgraves and Tycho and released a second standalone single "Greatest City" in October.