Both Pharis and Jason Romero played music prior to their meeting at a fiddle jam in 2007; notably, Pharis played with a group called Outlaw Social between 2005 and 2009. They bonded over old-timey string music and married within three months. The couple relocated to Pharis' hometown of Horsefly, with Jason moving his J. Romero Banjo Company as well.
At the dawn of their professional career, Pharis Jason Romero joined with the Haints Old Time Stringband with fiddler Erynn Marshall and multi-instrumentalist Carl Jones to cut the 2009 album Shout Monah. A year later they recorded Back Up and Push, which was credited to Jason Pharis Romero and Friends. The appellation Pharis Jason Romero was inaugurated on 2011's A Passing Glimpse, which gained enough attention for the duo to win the New/Emerging Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards.
Their next record, 2013's Long Gone Out West Blues, expanded their burgeoning success, earning several CFMA nominations, including Pharis' winning nod for Traditional Singer of the Year. The duo's third album, A Wanderer I'll Stay, appeared in 2015; it won the Juno Award for Traditional Roots Album of the Year in 2016. Pharis Jason Romero's fourth album saw release in May 2018. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi