Arrows In Action

From a campus in Gainesville to a house in Nashville

Arrows In Action started in 2017 among students at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Drummer Jesse Frimmel is the founding member and the only one left from the first line-up, which had a different singer. Victor Viramontes-Pattison came in on vocals and guitar after Arrows In Action opened the final show of his previous band, and guitarist Matt Fowler joined later, settling the three-piece that has carried the name since. The band told Cleveland Scene in November 2025 that this line-up is where the group's direction became clear.

The early years were unglamorous in the way most touring bands recognise. Their first show alongside The Home Team, in Jacksonville in 2019, sold no tickets at all. Fowler recalled the two bands essentially playing to each other and bonding over it. During the pandemic the trio moved into a shared house and posted weekly acoustic sets to TikTok, which is where an audience started to gather. Their first van tour, with Taylor Acorn and This Wild Life, came in December 2021.

By 2023 they had relocated to Nashville and released the independently made full-length Built To Last, produced and mixed by long-time collaborator Dan Swank. That record followed 2021's Be More, and the pair of do-it-yourself releases built the band a following of more than half a million monthly Spotify listeners before any label was involved.

A record in two halves

The band signed to Nettwerk Music Group in early 2025, their first deal with a label. The result was the second full-length, I Think I've Been Here Before, released on 19 September 2025. Viramontes-Pattison described the structure to Melodic Magazine in July 2025 as a split: rather than every song living in the same house, they live in a duplex. Side A is the daytime half, bright and hopeful and dancier than anything they had done. Side B, led by the single Empty Canvas, is the night-time half, darker and sadder.

The through-line is nostalgia and whether it helps or traps you. The lighthouse on the cover was chosen because, as Viramontes-Pattison told New Noise in September 2025, it is either something you return to for something good or something warning you away from something bad. The album was recorded in Nashville and at Lake Arrowhead in California, with Swank joined by Skyler Acord, Graham Laderman and Spencer Jordan as co-writers and producers.

Cheekbones, released as the second single in late 2024, became the band's calling card. Cleveland Scene put its Spotify count at close to 14 million streams in November 2025. By September 2026, Orlando Weekly had it at around 23 million. On 24 April 2026 the band issued a deluxe edition retitled I Think I've Heard This Before, adding two new songs, Twice and Cold. Idobi reported that Twice was the most sonically distinct track on the record, built on production ideas the band had wanted to try for years. A video for Twice is streaming on the band's site.

The rooms got bigger

The turning point on stage came at the revived Vans Warped Tour in Orlando in 2025. Arrows In Action were given a night-time slot on a smaller stage that clashed with Machine Gun Kelly's set, and they went on unsure anyone would come. The crowd stretched beyond what they could see from the stage. They have described it as the largest audience they had played to at that point, at a festival they had attended as teenagers. Earlier that year they had played idobi Radio's Summer School Tour, including a date at the Cleveland Agora.

In autumn 2025 they were the opener on The Home Team's national tour, a full circle from the empty Jacksonville room of 2019. Frimmel called playing sold-out houses with that band a dream come true, and Fowler said walking out to a thousand or two thousand people a night was hard to believe. In March 2026 they went to Australia for the first time as special guests on Taylor Acorn's Poster Child tour. The Rockpit's review of the Melbourne show at 170 Russell on 1 March 2026 found a crowd spanning ages from eighteen to fifty singing every word, and noted that a band with no bassist or keys still filled the room.

Spring 2026 brought a bigger support slot on Boys Like Girls' Soundtrack Of Your Life tour alongside I Don't Know How But They Found Me, including a 1 April date at MGM Northfield Park near Cleveland. The setlist data from that run shows a tight seven-song set built around Light Like You as the opener and Cheekbones as the closer.

Where they stand in September 2026

The band is now headlining. Their North American run opened on 10 and 11 September 2026 with two nights at The Social in Orlando, the city they treat as an honorary hometown. Orlando Weekly reported on 9 September that the Friday show had sold out and Thursday was selling quickly, with tickets at 26 dollars. Both nights doubled as a clothing drive for Mustard Seed of Central Florida, which the band said is their way of turning each tour into something that gives back.

There is a complication. Frimmel injured his hand shortly before the tour, and Ronnie Strauss, drummer with I Don't Know How But They Found Me, is filling in behind the kit for the opening stretch. The band has not said publicly how long the arrangement will last.

The run continues through Atlanta, Washington, Boston and New York's Gramercy Theatre in the week of 12 to 17 September, with a stop at Louder Than Life in Louisville the same weekend, then Toronto, Chicago, Denver, the West Coast and Texas through 14 October. From 27 October they reunite with The Home Team for four German dates in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne, before headline shows at Amsterdam's Melkweg on 1 November, Glasgow's Garage on 4 November and the O2 Forum Kentish Town in London on 8 November. A Nashville date at Exit/In on 21 November closes the year. Songkick lists 41 upcoming concerts across five countries.

What the show is like

The current headline shows are billed under the tour title I Think We're Toured Here Before, a nod to the album, with Good Boy Daisy and Instant Crush opening on the North American dates. Doors are typically at six in the evening.

Arrows In Action play as a three-piece with no bass player, and reviewers keep remarking on how much noise that produces. In Melbourne the Rockpit's Andrew Slaidins described infectious pop songs with modern edges and boy-band sensibilities, Viramontes-Pattison as a naturally charismatic frontman, Fowler grinning through a set even when low in the mix, and Frimmel stepping out from behind the kit to share vocals on Head In The Clouds. That support set ran to ten songs, opening with Empty Canvas and closing with Cheekbones, and included a live mash of Over It with Jesse McCartney's Beautiful Soul.

Setlist.fm's average 2026 setlist, drawn from 17 shows, is seven songs: Light Like You, Over It, Twice, Head In The Clouds, Stop Talking, Uncomfortably Numb and Cheekbones. Light Like You opened 14 of those shows and Cheekbones closed all 17. No encores were recorded. Those figures reflect support slots, so the headline sets this autumn will run longer, but the shape is consistent: the bright side-A material up front, the Taylor Acorn duet Uncomfortably Numb near the end, and Cheekbones as the send-off.

Fowler's advice to himself on the road, given to idobi in April 2026, doubles as a description of the band's stage manner: enjoy the show, because people can tell if you are having fun. Viramontes-Pattison told Cleveland Scene that being funny in their music is still new to them but that the band is funny and compelling on stage. The reviews so far agree.