[6] Although the band is best known for their most successful hit single to date "Shut Up and Dance", other notable songs include "Anna Sun" and "One Foot".

I Want!, in November 2010, receiving airplay for the track "Anna Sun" on multiple alternative radio stations.

Influential music blog Neon Gold helped to break the band in January 2011, calling "Anna Sun", "the kind of stuff British A&R dreams, and major label bidding wars, are made of.

The band played on the main stage at the 20th Anniversary of Lollapalooza and also supported Local Natives in an Official Lollaplooza Aftershow at Lincoln Hall.

with Chris Schmidt and Ben Cochran at Soap Floats Recording Studio in their hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio and then self-released it.

[14] The song was written by Petricca and New York songwriter Nick Lerangis as their time at Kenyon College came to an end.

Filmed in 2011 in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood,[18] the "Anna Sun" music video was released to coincide with the album.

[20] The band's self-titled major label debut Walk the Moon was released by RCA Records on June 19, 2012.

[24] Also in 2012, Walk the Moon played in the iTunes Festival in London, appeared in KROQ's Weenie Roast 2012, and was the supporting act for Fun on their European tour.

Their song “Quesadilla” was added to the official FIFA 13 soundtrack and their second single, “Tightrope” was used in a commercial for the HP Envy 4 Ultrabook laptop.

During October 2014, Walk the Moon released a series of pictures and videos on their Facebook page that hinted at the album's title.

In July 2015, Walk the Moon performed "Shut Up and Dance" in front of a hometown crowd at Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park, prior to the start of the Home Run Derby.

[33][34] On July 24, 2015, they joined Taylor Swift on stage at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, during her 1989 tour to perform "Shut Up and Dance".

Walk the Moon performed "Shut Up and Dance" live at the 43rd Annual American Music Awards (AMA) on November 22, 2015.

[36] They were first-time AMA nominees for:[37] The band's competition for New Artist of the Year included: Sam Hunt (winner), Fetty Wap, Tove Lo, and The Weeknd.

On January 1, 2016, Walk the Moon performed "Shut Up and Dance" and "Work This Body" on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve in New York.

[38] In April 2016, Walk the Moon announced their "Work This Body" tour would be canceled due to an illness in Petricca's family.

[40] In August 2017, Petricca performed solo at LoveLoud fest, a music festival benefitting LGBTQ+ youth in Utah.

On January 14, 2019, the band was announced by Muse as their opening act during their Simulation Theory North American tour.

On July 20, 2019, the band performed at Houston's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, at the first Moon landing 50th anniversary concert.

However, the band pressed ahead with recording and mixing the new album, with each member working in isolation and collaborating through Zoom.

[47] On December 21, 2020, Petricca made an Instagram post on the Walk the Moon account announcing that Ray was no longer a part of the band due to "firsthand information which leads us to conclude that [he] has acted out of alignment with our values."

was released in late 2010 as shown by the bar on the timeline, but it was recorded earlier when the band lineup consisted of Petricca, Lerangis, Reifsnyder, and Galvin.