Sunderland and Hite met while working at the fitness store Lululemon and became fans of each other's music; this led to them creating music together. The duo first posted to SoundCloud the song "Knives", which was produced alongside Norwegian producer Matoma. The track gained popularity online which led the duo to upload a second track, "Nowhere", followed by "Carpet".

In June 2016, the duo released "Capsize", a collaboration with American singer and songwriter Emily Warren, charting in multiple countries. The song also reached number one on Hype Machine, and has surpassed 360 million streams on Spotify. Their follow up single "1000 Nights" has over 14 million streams and continuing to grow at Alternative Radio. Frenship released their debut EP, Truce, in September 2016 via Columbia Records.