Quick Take
Santa Cruz-based journalist Mat Weir, who has known Oliver Tree for 13 years, shares his thoughts on his tragic death and the legacy he leaves behind in his home city.
Honestly, I can’t believe I’m writing this. It seems impossible that Oliver Tree is gone. Like so many of his friends, I keep waiting for it to be another one of his pranks, albeit a bad one. But I would take a poor-taste stunt than the reality we now find ourselves living in.
I first saw the news on social media and didn’t believe it at first. But as I kept scrolling and saw more and more posts, I had to go onto several news sites to verify that it was true. And then came the tears. He died in a helicopter collision in Brazil on Sunday as part of “The World’s First World Tour” (performing on all seven continents), something he told me he wanted to do as early as 2021.
Oliver Tree Nickell was a force of nature. While his media persona was one of a crazy, weird, sometimes ornery social influencer, behind the scenes he was someone who cared deeply: about his craft, about his friends and about his family.
While some people spend their life mastering one thing, Tree mastered so many things in his 32 years, from music, to comedy, memes, videos, film and more. In an Instagram post about Tree’s passing, electronic group Louis the Child wrote about the first time meeting him: “[Tree] freestyled for 10 minutes straight in the upstairs studio and right when [he] finished everyone else in the house bust open the door screaming, ‘Who are you?!?’ We were all blown away by the sound of [his] voice.”
Underneath the character was a certified genius. Tree knew exactly what he wanted and exactly how to do it, no matter what it was. He didn’t let anything hold him back or get in his way. And that genius spark was always there. Don’t believe me? Just listen to his first full-length album, “Splitting Branches,” which he released under his original moniker, “Tree,” at just 19 years old.
I’m listening to it now as I write this, and it’s absolutely insane that he could make this at that age. The album is spiritual and ethereal. Artists of all mediums often talk about tapping into the universe – or having God speak through them – when they create. “Splitting Branches” is that album. On the track “Universal” (“We are the universe/don’t forget that” and “We make up a universe that’s unified/you decide where you want to fit in it all”) he’s like a timeless guru, reminding us, “you’re not alone you just forgot that/we make up a universe that’s unified/not just you inside/the cosmos are infinite.”
I first met Tree through the local music scene when he was 17, and I could already tell there was something different about this kid. It was probably like that for anyone who met him. Geniuses are like that. Two years later, when he released his “Demons” EP, I had the pleasure of interviewing him. It was most likely one of the first articles ever about him, if not the first ever. That was 2013 and the first of many articles I would write about Tree over the next 13 years.
One of the things that sticks out in my mind about every time I interviewed him was his happiness. Tree loved life, and that was evident in not only his answers but how he answered the questions. His comments were thoughtful and introspective, but also with his trademark humor and wit.
And man, was Tree prolific.
He tirelessly worked on his art, often surprising his friends and fellow artists. Tree did more living in 32 years than most do in a lifetime or even several. In a memorial post, Russian hard bass group Little Big wrote about their time with Tree, “What struck us most was that Oliver seemed incapable of standing still. Every second of every day was devoted to creating, imagining, writing, recording, building something new.”
Throughout all the fame, Tree never forgot where he came from. He loved Santa Cruz and the friends he wrote with along the way.
In 2021, he played at the Rio Theatre, a show free for anyone who brought in canned or dry goods for Second Harvest Food Bank. The show raised 1,038 pounds of food for those in need, which equaled 1,271 meals. More than that, Tree kept it local with opener Shelf Nunny (aka Christian Gunning) and a backing band consisting of Casey Mattson and Amir Oosman, who have all been with him since the early days. Gunning and Mattson are not only old friends who grew up with Oliver, but also wrote and performed with him during his original Tree days.
In a now-eerie April interview on the “Zach Sang Show,” Tree announced that his will was made, and when he died all of his money would go to a nonprofit he set up called Dr. Oliver Tree’s Art Grants for Baby Geniuses.
“My will is set up so when I pass, my family, no one’s going to get a penny,” he said, his skin painted green like Shrek – because, of course. “The idea is, when I die, all the money is going to go back to artists.”
Over the past four years, we didn’t talk as much, as he was always so busy writing, touring and creating. But we did manage to keep in touch here and there, and I’d always make sure to hit him up on his birthday, which is in only a couple weeks, as my phone reminded me Sunday. There’s something truly evil about getting a reminder of your friend’s birthday on the day he dies.
As if the news of Tree’s death didn’t hurt enough, the lemon juice in the cut was seeing how full of Oliver Tree my feed was. Yeah, I know that’s how the algorithm works, but unlike other artists I follow, this was endless. I had to get off social media for the day just to gather myself. There were a plethora of tributes from fans and countless posts from fellow artists, whether they were musicians, influencers or video creators.
I think that speaks to one of Tree’s unsung talents, his humanity. He left an impact on anyone he met and carved out space in the hearts of his friends and loved ones. He might not have been as popular as someone like Jay-Z, but he made a global name for himself, and he did it DIY-style and on his own terms. You knew that whatever he came out with, that’s what he wanted to do, and that spoke to so many of us who are trying to make it in this world. He played major music festivals like Coachella, Outside Lands and the Electric Daisy Carnival, and as a kid from Santa Cruz who graduated from Harbor High School, he was a hometown hero.
So this isn’t a goodbye. It’s a thank you. Oliver, you were one of the most original people I ever met and you made this world a brighter place with your art, laughter and vision. I’ll always cherish our time together and our interviews, and I’ll always regret not having more. I was so looking forward to seeing you in August when you were scheduled to play the Quarry Amphitheater, and I’m so, so sorry to see you leave us so soon. The world was robbed Sunday, and there’s no way any of us will ever heal from that. My love and condolences are with your friends and fellow artists, but especially your parents and all of the Nickell family.
I know they know how truly special you were and how much of an impact you made on those who knew you, let alone the world. Love you man, and I’ll see you again someday because the cosmos are infinite and I won’t forget that we are the universe.
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