Oliver Tree fans return to Santa Cruz for Día de los Muertos tribute at singer’s gravesite

It’s dusk on Sunday, Nov. 1, and the chill begins to set in underneath the canopy of the redwood trees at Evergreen Cemetery. Ribbons of marigolds are draped around the grave of the late Santa Cruz pop sensation, Oliver Tree, born Oliver Tree Nickell. Dozens of candles decorate the plot, illuminating the drawings, paintings and photos of the singer. The sweet smell of incense wafts through the air as sticks of sacred herbs and botanicals slowly burn. A hand-sculpted sugar skull featuring Tree’s signature bowl haircut and being abducted by a UFO is crafted in front of his Brutalist-style architecture headstone. 

It’s the first day of Día de los Muertos, the holiday celebrated by millions around the world to honor ancestors and loved ones who have left this mortal coil, helping to normalize the cycle of life and death. Its origins trace back 3,000 years and reflect a blend of pre-Columbian, Mesoamerican culture with European and Spanish influence. Tradition holds that the veil between worlds is thinnest during the two days after Halloween, allowing the spirits to visit the living. The marigolds (or cempasúchils in Spanish) guide the spirits to the altar, or ofrenda. The four elements are represented at the ofrenda – water for the spirits to drink, earth represented by sweet breads, wind symbolized by papel picados (paper banners) and candles for fire. 

Sunday’s event was organized by two superfans from outside the area, Delila Nebulosa and Shanti Green. 

“We came to the memorial in July,” Nebulosa says through a translator. She’s referring to the sold-out celebration of life at the UC Santa Cruz Quarry Amphitheater organized by Nickell’s family and friends, where almost 3,000 people gathered to honor the musician. 

“And Shanti and I thought, ‘We should do a Day of the Dead for Oliver in November,’” she continues. 

So the two friends reached out to Nickell’s parents, Christine and Jesse, for permission. 

“This was the perfect excuse to come back to Santa Cruz and do some art,” Green says. “And we love Oliver. He has a lot of good messages, and I appreciate his lyrics and music.” 

Along with Nebulosa and Green, the Nickells and several friends, family members and fans gathered at the grave earlier in the day to build the ofrenda. 

Rhiannon Faurie was one of the people who gathered at 2 p.m. to help. 

“Oliver was a longtime friend of mine from middle school,” she says. “He was a friend to all and was an amazing person in this lifetime.” 

Some fans came from hundreds of miles away, like Mark and Jess Jones, who drove down from Brookings, Oregon. They originally arrived to attend the Oliver Tree Has a Scooter Posse meetup the day before on Halloween. For that event, fans dressed as Oliver – or one of his many characters – and rode scooters from the musician’s grave to downtown Santa Cruz for the Halloween parade, finishing at the Beach Boardwalk. Tree was known for his scooter riding and tricks, along with holding the Guinness World Record for the largest scooter kick. 

“We heard that the vigil was happening tonight so we stayed a little longer,” says Mark, who is dressed in one of Tree’s signature outfits. “[Oliver’s] music, his lyrics and how he presented it is just so artistic it sucks me in. From the very beginning I couldn’t help but find everything I could about Oliver.” 

“There’s such a wide range of people who love him,” Jess agrees. “You have little, tiny kids here to older fellas.” 

For fans like Ignacio “Nacho” Rosas – who was dressed as Tree’s Cornelius Cummings character and also helped clean the gravesite for the ofrenda – the generational appeal is one of the reasons he loves the music. 

“When my daughter absorbs it and we can both listen to it, it becomes a bonding moment,” he says. “And depending on what mood I’m in, each album is different. Whatever emotion you want to pull out of yourself, his catalogue is there.” 

While Tree had been creating music since childhood, he first gained internet success in 2016 when he created the character Turbo, an “ugly Justin Bieber” anti-pop star known for his temper, scooter-riding, bowl hair cut and signature pink and purple jacket. That same year, his song with producer Whethan, “When I’m Down,” was certified gold, which led to Tree signing with Atlantic Records. Over the next decade, Tree had multiple hit tracks, including “Life Goes On” and “Miss You,” appeared on late-night shows such as “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and released four albums along with a graphic novel. 

However, it was Tree’s internet savvy that really earned him a place in pop culture. He was a master at marketing and knew how to create art that was equally funny and serious, often blurring the lines between reality and satire. 

“He was always left- and right-brained,” says Christine Nickell. “He was strategic.” 

The singer was just starting his “World’s First World Tour” when he tragically died in a helicopter collision in Brazil on June 14. However, Tree was such a prolific artist that his family says there is a massive body of work that will be released for many, many years to come.

“There’s over 1,000 finished songs,” Jesse Nickell says. “Just with Whethan alone, there’s 77.” 

“And there’s two books, a children’s book, photo books, 40 mockumentaries, four screenplays, and a documentary,” says Christine Nickell, adding that Tree’s clothing line, Alien Boy Clothing – all designed by the artist prior to his death – will also be launching soon. There will even be a museum showcasing Tree’s life, music and the many props he used in his live performances and videos. However, it is currently unclear whether it will be a rotating, traveling exhibit or a dedicated, permanent building. 

In an eerie coincidence, just before his death, Tree announced that, when he died, all of his money would go to create the Dr. Oliver Tree’s Extremely Epic Grant for Baby Geniuses. The grant would give artists with limited financial resources the funding to execute their visions. 

“The idea from Oliver was no capital purchases,” Jesse says. “Rent everything you need to produce art. [He] didn’t want it to go to schooling. He was about getting his hands dirty. Get off the couch and produce. You don’t learn unless you’re producing.” 

While still in the developmental stages, the grant’s board of directors – 13 people hand-picked either by Tree in his will or his family, with spots for up to 21 individuals if needed – has been working to bring the idea to fruition.

“All of this takes research and development,” Christine says. “He would come home and say, ‘It’s been a long life’ – that was his line – and yeah, we get it now.” 

For fans like Lindsey Freeman and his wife, Pariesa Halterman, who attended Sunday’s vigil, it was Tree’s constant need to produce art that they connected with.

“Everything he did was weird and different,” Freeman says. “And for someone who was born and raised in Santa Cruz – where ‘Keep Santa Cruz Weird’ is our unofficial motto – it just resonated with me.” 

Halterman and Freeman are the two people behind the The Hidden Oliver Project, an online archive of art from around the world created in Oliver Tree’s honor. 

“[Halterman] saw a lot of artists on social media that were putting up their own tributes to Oliver Tree, and a lot of them were not in this country,” Freeman says about the project. “So it’s a way to be able to find that stuff easier and faster for everyone to look at.” 

The two are also behind a GoFundMe to raise money for an Oliver Tree memorial mural at The Starving Musician in downtown Santa Cruz. 

“He had a real misfit following and spoke to a lot of people,” Jesse Nickell says. “His message was, ‘Trust yourself, you are beautiful.’” 

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