Oliver Tree Nickell (born June, 29, 1993) better known as Oliver Tree is an American singer/songwriter. producer, rapper and filmmaker. Born in Santa Cruz, California, Oliver signed to Atlantic Records in 2017 after his song "When I'm Down" went viral and released his debut studio album Ugly Is Beautiful in 2020. He achieved international recognition with his song "Life Goes On" in 2021, and "Miss You" in 2022 as-well as his persona “Turbo”. Oliver Tree has made music in a variety of genres, often focusing on topics like being yourself, heart-break, not fitting in etc.
Early Life[]
Oliver Tree Nickell was born on June 29, 1993, in Santa Cruz, California. He has said he took "piano lessons at three years old, [began] songwriting the next year, and [had] an album written by age six." Oliver studied business at San Francisco State University for two years. In 2010-2011 (?), Oliver got into an Incident at the Burning Man festival where he took a lot of Acid and almost died. This incident would be the thing that started Oliver Tree's music career, Oliver would use this as a way to escape his at the time drug addiction.
Career[]
2010–2016: Early career and hiatus (Splitting Branches/Tree + Kryph Era)[]
Oliver began his music career when he sang and played guitar in a ska band called 'Irony' in middle school, which was his first experience performing. Little is known about this band but after this period Oliver went solo.
Oliver began releasing music on Soundcloud in mid-2010, under the pseudonym 'Kryph', primarily producing dubstep tracks with Getter and other artists around Santa Cruz. Around this time Oliver began rapping, and would sometimes incorporate this into his music. By then, he had made presentations for performances such as Skrillex and Zeds Dead.
As Oliver began to branch out and collaborate with more creators around the Santa Cruz bay area, his style developed into a more melodic, bedroom-pop sound, incorporating electronic elements inspired by the likes of Aphex Twin, Mount Kimbie & Nosaj Thing. Oliver would drop the pseudonym 'Kryph' for 'Tree' in 2011 and performed at festivals such as Wobbleland 2011 in San Francisco.
At age 20, Oliver signed up with London-based R&S Records and released his debut EP, Demons. The EP gained some recognition after Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke approved of his cover of their song "Karma Police". Tree eventually found himself on hiatus as he went back to school, studying music technology at the California Institute of the Arts.
2016–2018: Return to music and Alien Boy (Alien Boy (EP) / Alien Boy Era)[]
In November 2016, he returned to music with his television debut, performing with Getter on Last Call with Carson Daly. He got the chance to be in his first ever music video to reach MTV and created the persona Turbo and created a name for himself on vine and Getter. Shortly after the release of "When I'm Down", Oliver signed to Atlantic Records, and a month later, graduated from the California Institute of the Arts. Oliver often writes, acts, and directs sketches in 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.
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 where he was subsequently named on LA Weekly's "The Best (and Weirdest) Fashion at Coachella" list in 2017.
He was the supporting act on Louis the Child's 2017 Last to Leave Tour (2017) and Skizzy Mars' Are You OK? Tour (2018), 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.
2018–2020: (Ugly Is Beautiful Era)[]
Throughout 2018 and 2019, Oliver released singles that would make an appearance on his debut album, Ugly Is Beautiful. On December 7, 2018, Oliver released his second music video, "Hurt", a single from the album. He travelled 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 views while the song received significant radio play. On. Over the next few months Oliver would release single after single.
Oilver released his second EP, Do You Feel Me? on August 2, 2019, to generally positive reviews. On December 6, 2019, Oliver released "Cash Machine", a single, after Oliver announced his debut album, Ugly Is Beautiful, and announced that the album would be released on 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 16, 2020, Oliver set the Guinness World Record for the world's largest kick scooter, which he later uploaded a video of himself riding on July 17, 2020. On June 8, 2020, Oliver 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 murder of George Floyd, he "did not believe it was an appropriate time" to release the album when much bigger things deserved attention. On July 17, 2020, Ugly Is Beautiful was released.
2021–2022: (Cowboy Tears Era/Miss You)[]
Despite claiming that he was retired, he released the single "Out of Ordinary" on February 4, 2021, announcing the deluxe edition of Ugly Is Beautiful. In early 2021 the whole deluxe would leak. On May 28, 2021, Oliver released a deluxe version of his debut album named Ugly Is Beautiful: Shorter, Thicker & Uglier which had his most viral song Life Goes on, on it.
He would later collaborate with Russian rave band Little Big and release the single "Turn It Up", featuring Tommy Cash, from their collaborative EP Welcome to the Internet, which was later released on September 30, 2021.
On January 12, 2022, Tree released the single "Cowboys Don't Cry" from his second album Cowboy Tears. Cowboy Tears was released on February 18, 2022. He followed up the release of Cowboy Tears with a deluxe titled "Cowboy Tears: Drown the World in a Swimming Pool of Sorrow (Deluxe) on December 23rd 2022.This era/year was a major flop for Oliver until his second most viral song “Miss You” came out, originally made by Southstar but remade by Robin Shultz and would later get many remixes.
2023–present: (Alone in a Crowd Era)[]
On March 3, 2023, Oliver released his first single of 2023, "Here We Go Again" with DJ and music producer David Guetta. He followed up this release with a single titled "Bounce" released on June 20. The same day, he performed a show at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado and announced that this song was the first single released that would be featured in his third studio album Alone in a Crowd, which would release on September 29, 2023. Over the last few months Oliver would release single after single, One of them featuring Fictional Underground EDM duo Super Computer. He added the previously named song “Miss You” on the album as a bonus track, a request from Atlantic Records to prevent another flop like Cowboy Tears.
Discography[]
Albums[]
- Splitting Branches (Independently released) (2013)
- Spaceman (Unreleased) [Unknown]
- Squirt (Album) [Unreleased] (2016)
- Ugly is Beautiful (Studio Album) (2020)
- Ugly is Beautiful: Shorter, Thicker & Uglier (Deluxe) (Studio Album) (2021)
- Cowboy Tears (Studio Album) (2022)
- Cowboy Tears Drown the World in a Swimming Pool of Sorrow (Deluxe) (Studio Album) (2022)
- Alone In A Crowd (Studio Album) (2023)
EPS[]
- Demons (Studio EP) (2013)
- Alien Boy EP (Studio EP) (2018)
- Do You Feel Me? (Studio EP) (2019)
- Welcome To The Internet (Studio EP) (2021)