Oliver Tree
Oliver Tree Nickell is an American singer-songwriter, producer, rapper, comedian, and filmmaker from Santa Cruz, California. He signed to Atlantic Records in 2017, after his song "When I'm Down" became popular.
Early Life
Tree grew up in Santa Cruz and has taken "piano lessons at three years old, songwriting the next year, an album written by age six". He sang and played guitar in a ska band called Irony, which was his first experience performing. In high school, Tree took interest in hip-hop and electronic music, becoming a DJ and recording with the rap group Mindfuck. He has performed shows opening for acts such as Tyler, the Creator; Nero, and Frank Ocean, and has released music under his pseudonym, Tree.At the age of 17, he had already made presentations for performances such as Skrillex and Zeds Dead, and began releasing his music with his middle name, Tree.
At age 18, Tree signed to London-based R&S Records and released his debut EP Demons. The EP gained some recognition after Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke approved of his cover of their song "Karma Police".
Tree studied business at San Francisco State University for two years and Music Technology at California Institute of the Arts.
Career
Oliver launched his solo recording career as "Tree" in 2010. He initially self-released his music but signed with R&S Records in 2011. He eventually found himself on hiatus as he went back to school, studying music technology at California Institute of the Arts.In November 2016, he returned to music with his television debut performing with Getter on Last Call with Carson Daly.
Shortly after the release of "When I'm Down", Tree signed to Atlantic Records, and a month later graduated from California Institute of the Arts.
Tree often writes, acts and directs in sketch comedy videos, and has worked with companies such as Fuck Jerry.
In February 2018, Tree released his major-label debut EP Alien Boy, along with the double music video for “All That x Alien Boy.” Tree wrote and directed the debut, which took over nine months to create. He spent five months practicing freestyle Monster Truck jumping at the Perris Auto Speedway and performed all his stunts in the music video.
Oliver Tree has played major festivals such as Lollapalooza and Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, and performed as a special guest at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and EDC, most notably at Coachella where he was subsequently named on LA Weeklys "The Best Fashion at Coachella" list in 2017.
He was the supporting act on Louis the Child's 2017 Last to Leave Tour and Skizzy Mars' Are You OK? Tour, and was scheduled to join Lil Dicky and DJ Mustard on the Life Lessons Tour Fall 2018 before it was canceled. Tree toured North America and Europe with Hobo Johnson in 2018.
On December 7, 2018, Tree released his second music video, "Hurt", a single from his debut album Ugly Is Beautiful. He traveled to Ukraine to film the video, which he wrote and co-directed with Brendan Vaughan, an up-and-coming music video director. In the first week, the music video for "Hurt" reached one million plays while the song received significant radio play.
On April 11, 2019, Tree released his third music video, "Fuck", with the single being released on the same day.
His fourth music video and single, "Miracle Man", was released on June 7, 2019, with the video reaching 1.3 million views on the first day of release. On June 12, he announced that he would give his final tour.
Tree released his second EP Do You Feel Me? on August 2, 2019, to generally positive reviews.
On December 6, 2019, Tree released "Cash Machine", a single accompanied by a music video. Together with the single, Tree announced his debut album Ugly Is Beautiful with an initial release date of March 27, 2020.
On March 25, 2020, Tree posted a message to his Twitter page, stating that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ugly Is Beautiful would not be released on time. However, on May 19, the album's official release date was revealed to be June 12.
On May 26, 2020, Tree uploaded a music video for "Bury Me Alive" from Ugly Is Beautiful with a $6 budget.
On June 8, 2020, Tree announced his decision to delay Ugly Is Beautiful yet again, this time to July 17. He stated that, because of the issues of racism and police violence against black people going on during that time after the killing of George Floyd, he "did not believe it was an appropriate time" to release the album when "much bigger things" deserved attention.
On July 15, 2020, Tree announced in a Twitch interview with Anthony Fantano and the H3 Podcast that Ugly Is Beautiful would be his last album and that he would be retiring his music career after its release. He cited the difficulties he had with his label and the industry in promoting and releasing the album as his reasoning. He has decided he would pursue filmmaking afterwards. This most likely refers to the end of "Turbo" character that Tree has been playing.
On July 17, 2020, Ugly Is Beautiful was released. Most notably in this album is the song "1993", which features an alien-themed character named Little Ricky ZR3, who in Oliver's words is an "upcoming artist" and "long-term friend". In the Fantano interview Oliver states that Little Ricky had helped Oliver produce songs and had even done some vinyl scratching in his track Bury Me Alive. Many fans speculate that Little Ricky is actually Oliver, and that his vocals in 1993 are simply Oliver's voice pitched down. Along with this, fans speculate that even though Oliver's main character, Turbo/Oliver Tree would be gone, Oliver would continue to release music under the alias Little Ricky.
On July 18, 2020, YouTube star H3h3Productions posted a podcast starring and interviewing Oliver. Inside the interview, Oliver states that Atlantic Records had forced him to release several singles from his debut album Ugly Is Beautiful against his will, comparing the event to chapters being ripped out of a book and released separately. In addition to this, Oliver also stated that Atlantic had forced him to reach 1 million followers to be signed on their label at all, and then changed this number to 2 million when he reached 1 million.