Oliver Tree

Oliver Tree Nickell (born June 29, 1993) is an American musician. Born in Santa Cruz, California, Tree 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 songs "Life Goes On" in 2021, and "Miss You" in 2022. He released his second studio album Cowboy Tears on February 18, 2022, and his third studio album Alone in a Crowd was released on September 29, 2023.
Early life
Tree 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."
Tree studied business at San Francisco State University for two years.
Career
2010–2016: Early career and hiatus
Tree launched his solo recording career as "Tree" in 2010. By then, he had made presentations for performances such as Skrillex and Zeds Dead. He initially self-released his music, releasing an album called "Splitting Branches" in early 2013, but signed with R&S Records later that year. He sang and played guitar in a ska band called Irony, which was his first experience performing. Under the pseudonym "Kryph" he released his second album of the same name in 2014, and produced dubstep for a brief period of time, as well as performing at music festivals such as Wobbleland 2011 in San Francisco. He mainly released music under the pseudonym "Tree".
At age 20, Tree signed up with the London-based R&S Records and released his debut EP, Demons in August 2013. 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
In March 2016, Tree returned to music, being featured on the song “Forget It” by Getter, a part of his EP, Radical Dude!
In November of that year, he made his first television debut, performing with Getter on Last Call with Carson Daly.
Shortly after the release of "When I'm Down" by Whethan featuring Oliver in October 2016, Tree signed to Atlantic Records and a month later, graduated from the California Institute of the Arts.
Tree often writes, acts, and directs sketches in comedy videos, and has worked with companies such as Fuck Jerry.
He released his debut single as Oliver Tree “Welcome to LA” on May 26, 2017, accompanied by another single, “All I Got”.
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 at 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 Weeklys "The Best (and Weirdest) Fashion at Coachella" list in 2017.
He was the supporting act on Louis the Child's 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 and singles
Throughout 2018 and 2019, Tree released singles that would make an appearance on his debut album, Ugly Is Beautiful. On December 7, 2018, Tree 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. On April 11, 2019, Tree released a standalone single, "Fuck", with the music video 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. Tree released his second EP, Do You Feel Me? on August 2, 2019, in which the song “Introspective” would make an appearance on the album. The EP gained 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, 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 April 7, 2020, he released a sixth song from the album, “Let Me Down” along with a music video.
On May 16, 2020, Tree set the Guinness World Record for the world's largest kick scooter, which he later uploaded a video of himself riding on in July 2020. 10 days later, he released his last single before the album, titled “Bury Me Alive” having a music video as well.
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 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: Deluxe version of Ugly Is Beautiful, collaboration with Little Big, Cowboy Tears, critical recognition and Cowboy Tears Deluxe
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.
On May 28, 2021, Tree released a deluxe version of his debut album named Ugly Is Beautiful: Shorter, Thicker & Uglier, from which the song “Life Goes On” gained notable popularity.
He would later collaborate with Russian rave band Little Big and release the single "Turn It Up", featuring Estonian rapper 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" and the single “Freaks & Geeks” on February 4, both from his second album, Cowboy Tears. Cowboy Tears was released on February 18, 2022. On May 20, 2022, Tree released a single, "I Hate You" followed up by another single “Placeholder" on July 15. He would also announce a tour to accompany the album Cowboy Tears. On August 5, 2022, he followed up the release of Cowboy Tears with a non-album single titled “Miss You” a collaboration with German music producer Robin Schulz and a remix of the song “Jerk” from Ugly is Beautiful. A month later, Tree collaborated with DJ and producer “TWISTED” for “WORTH NOTHING”, another remix of the song Jerk, but in the Phonk genre. This song would go on to become the “Sigma” theme song in the meme industry. On October 28, 2022, the music video of Miss You was uploaded, and the song started to gain as much popularity as Life Goes On did in 2021. He then released a deluxe version of Cowboy Tears titled "Cowboy Tears: Drown the World in a Swimming Pool of Sorrow” on December 23, 2022.
2023–present: Alone in a Crowd and World Tour
On March 3, 2023, Tree 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 played a show at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado and announced that this song was the first single released that would be featured on his third studio album, Alone in a Crowd. On July 17, Tree announced that his Alone in a Crowd World Tour would occur from October 2023 to February 2024. He would be scheduled to perform in Australia with American rapper Sueco, Europe and the United Kingdom with Tommy Cash, and the United States with rock band Fidlar. On July 21, he released his second single from the album, "One & Only". He collaborated with upcoming underground dance music group Super Computer for his third single, "Essence" released on September 1, 2023. On September 15, a fourth single was released, "Fairweather Friends". Alone in a Crowd was then released two weeks later on September 29, 2023.
Discography
Studio albums
Independent albums
Extended plays
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Filmography
Television
Awards and nominations
Notes
References
External links
1993 births
Living people
People from Santa Cruz, California
Musicians from Santa Cruz, California
American alternative rock musicians
American dance musicians
Singers from California
Comedians from California
American sketch comedians
Dance-pop musicians
San Francisco State University alumni
21st-century American singers
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American rappers
21st-century American male singers