Before Oliver Tree would drop viral hits with the video for “Alien Boy” sitting at over
18 million views on YouTube and the song “Hurt” at 22 million at the time of this recording.
Before Oliver Tree would steel the show on what is now an all-time classic performance
on the James Corden Show.
Before Oliver Tree would have more than 650k subscribers on YouTube, over 125k on Twitter
and over 800k followers on Instagram at the time of this recording and with all that clout
he'd buy himself the world's biggest vape.
In order to find out about a Tree, you’ve gotta go back and look at its roots but with
this man it's a little hard to separate what's fact from fiction. With that said, this man
is quickly becoming one of the most interesting men in music. We have done hours of research
and I literally don’t know if a single thing he’s EVER said has been serious or not.
Like I’m not sure about a single word. When asked about whether he considers himself a
musician or a comedian, he replied with:
I’m not either one of those things, I prefer the term scooter enthusiast.
He could either be completely serious or 100% joking, but I don’t know that there is an
in between with Oliver Tree. We do know a few things are legit, like his professional
career on the scooter that which nearly cost him his life after her was derailed by a single
pebble.
The man also insists on doing his own stunts in what are some of the most creative, entertaining
and outrageously over the top videos, I’ve ever seen.
He's also given some of the most remarkable and entertaining interviews I've ever seen:
It's impossible to spend time on the internet without seeing Oliver Tree pop up somewhere
on your feed. The man has an account full of memes dedicated just to him and his now
infamous Bowl Cut.
Wish me luck as we try to untangle the giant trail of bread crumbs he's laid out for the
world to try and piece together. It's guys like this that really make me wish I turned
this show into an interview show back in 2017, it would make my life so much easier...
on second thought maybe not...
What's going on guys? It's your boy Michael McCrudden taking a crack at the come up story
of Oliver Tree prior to fame, here for you on Before They Were Famous. A few recent drops
you should check out include Ninja The Rich Life, Funny Mike Before They Were Famous and
my fav of these three, Bam Margera Where Are They Now? Hit Subscribe if you are new to
the Fame Gang. Also, if you have ever wanted a Before They Were Famous made on yourself
check out the details on our newly launched Patreon on YouTube channel memberships. Links
are down below – this channel needs your support and we wanna promote our most loyal
fans. Aright, enough with the plugs. Let's get into Oliver Tree ...
Oliver Tree Nickell was born on June 29, 1993 in Santa Cruz, California. Oliver has shared
a lot of these details in own video titled Oliver Tree's Life Story:
According to Oliver - he spent multiple years travelling with his parents in the Pickle
Family Circus. According to Oliver, both of his parents were acrobatics and he a unicycler.
See what I mean about never actually knowing if the guy is serious? That backstory sounds
so unbelievable, that I actually found myself wanting to believe it. I decided to look up
the Pickle Family Circus and it turns out this was a small family business that existed
in the 70's and 80's operating in San Fransisco that went bankrupt in1992 - one year before
Oliver Tree was born. So I'm gonna have to chalk this part of his come up story as fiction.
Pretty creative though! The guy might as well have been part of a circus, I mean he's pretty
talented on stilts:
His musical origins sounds believable, at first, claiming his introduction to the piano
at the age of three and finding himself being naturally musically gifted:
Apparently most kids can write between the ages of 3 and 5, so as a gifted musical prodigy,
this could very well be realistic. But then it gets a little wilder:
But I can confirm that it was in middle school that he began to write and record music. At
the time, he was the singer and guitarist in a rock band called Irony. When he was around
the age of 14, he claims he was big into raves, where he says he would show off dance moves
like this:
His next musical project was becoming a DJ in high school. He also recorded music with
the rap group called Mindf***.
His collaborator Casey Mattson said that during high school, Oliver had a dream of one day
releasing a music video with a monster truck in it. Don't even knock the power of manifestation
kids.
At the time they were recording in their parents’ houses spending all night creating music.
Oliver was able to open for some big name acts like Skrillex while he was still in high
school.
The Skrillex event was thrown by a local production company called Vital SC that Tree was a part
of. After the show, Vital asked Oliver to make original music so he did just that.
Apparently what he saw as original was too experimental for Vital and the EDM scene at
the time. Ultimately, Oliver decided to venture out on his own and continue to craft his original
sound that didn’t seem to fit into boxes anywhere.
He released music under his alleged middle name of Tree which was a genre blending mixture
of indie rock, rap and everything in between. His first solo album was called “Splitting
branches.” You can find some of his older music on the YouTube channel called “Tree
Collaborations.” And the potential is all there.
But his love for music was put in second place to two wheels and a handle bar. No, not a
bike. But the ever-overlooked and always underrated, scooter. The good old fashioned, manually-automated,
push scooter. Oliver is actually a well awarded Scooter..er. Scooter-er. I think that’s
how you say it.
The dude can SHRED and when he was 18 he was competing in a scooter competition
and
I literally can’t tell if he’s being serious at all… But according to him the crash left
him with a medal rod through his hand with two broken wrists, unable to fend or wipe
for himself, leaving it up to his girlfriend to help sort his shit out… literally.
There was a lot of push back with people saying that
this story was made up so Oliver released photos from his time in the hospital.
We also looked into the Junior Syndicate team that he says he was signed to. There IS an
official Santa Cruz Syndicate and according to their website, they are:
A family of downright entertaining personalities, the Syndicate reﬂects Santa Cruz's
dedication to racing and commitment to pushing the frontline of mountain bike technology.
For any doubters out there – it looks like his story checks out.
Let's get back to his music career. Now Oliver says that it was AFTER that accident that
he was forced to reevaluate things and focus more heavily on his potential as a musician.
Just to remind you guys how confusing it is for me to piece this story together Oliver
told Status Magazine that it was during a Unicycle accident at 13 years old when he
was attending Clown Camp that made him reevaluate things and get more into music… Who knows,
but regardless of how it happened, music took over his life!
It has been proven that Oliver continued to release music onto his SoundCloud and someone
found him from a label. At 18 years old, Tree signed to London-based Apollo Records as a
part of the R&S imprint to release his debut EP called Demons.
Radiohead singer Thom Yorke gave Oliver’s music a cosign after he heard his cover of
their song “Karma Police.”
We can't play the audio to to copyright claims but it's worth checking out especially if
you wanna see what Oliver Tree was up to before the Bowl Cut.
Oliver had already recorded a demo version of the song and wanted to use it for his album.
So his label reached out to Radiohead and showed them the version. Yorke loved it and
gave him the go ahead.
The version that ended up on the album was recorded in London and fun fact, the drummer
from Snow Patrol actually did the live drums on Oliver’s version of the song.
And there you have the answer to your question from the beginning of the video!
I found an old interview with Oliver where he spoke on the creation of the album:
It was incredibly time consuming. I really wanted to emphasize quality over quantity.
Speaking about spending the whole year on getting the record right. Something he still
seems to care about today. He said that some of the songs on the EP had over 100 tracks
layered on top of one another to create the full sound.
And while Tree saw some early success, he made the decision to put his solo career on
hold and go back to school to study music technology at California Institute of the
Arts. At first he was attending San Fransisco State University but transferred to Los Angeles
to focus in on the music program. He used his time at school to plan the Oliver Tree
takeover which would begin years later.
It was in 2016, after he felt creatively ready, that Tree returned with new music under the
name Oliver Tree. His song “When I’m Down” was released online and started to make waves
with its unique sound.
Here’s a fun trivia fact, and shoutout to the YouTube channel Doco who made a dope video
on Oliver Tree for putting me onto this, but apparently Oliver Tree moved in with the legendary
viners “Suh Dudes” – Nick Collettee, who is also responsible for the absolutely
legendary What the F is Up Kyle vine - and Tanner Petulla who makes music under the name
Getter.
They created music together and released it online. One of Getter and Oliver’s songs
is currently sitting at more than 4 million views.
But everything changed for Oliver when a vine of his went viral, it was in that vine that
he took on the persona of a man named “Turbo.”
Now, we can’t be sure if Oliver Tree the artist had been created prior to this vine
or if the character he’s playing inspired Oliver to keep the look and mold it into his
artistry,
but one thing is forsure, he knew that he had hit gold. He continued to build his audience
on Vine using videos on Vine.
The old Jacket which he told H3H3 is his moms old ski jacket that he wore as a kid he only
owns one version of.
This in combo with a bowl cut and his speed sun glasses became his new online identity
which quickly caught on and grew his exposure as a meme.
This internet buzz resulted in labels recognizing his unique talents and Tree signed with Atlantic
Records. A month later it's believed he graduated from California Institute of Arts.
But it wasn’t until two years later that he would finally blow up into the mainstream.
It’s Tree’s music videos that has taken his career to the next level, as he’s directed
and produced some of the most visually and creatively intriguing videos I’ve ever seen.
Each one is filled with twists, turns and usually ends up in Oliver’s untimely, yet
comedic death.
But he is not new to directing and producing videos, in fact he has actually worked with
some of the biggest digital media companies on skits and videos, including Bartstool Sports
and Fuck Jerry.
In February of 2018, Oliver released his Atlantic debut EP called “Alien Boy” with a music
video for the EP’s title track. The video took Oliver over 9 months to create from when
he first started writing it.
Oliver performed all of his own stunts in the video, which include riding a mini-motorized
scooter and monster truck jumping.
In order to perfect his craft for the role, he spent 5 months practicing his jumps at
the Perris Auto Speedway. The music video is currently sitting at 16 million views.
It was the music video for his song “Hurt” that caught the attention of new fans as Oliver
traveled to the Ukraine to shoot the video.
And expectations were high because the video apparently cost over a million dollars to
make. The initial budget was 500k but then Oliver pushed it all the way up to a milli.
Luckily for him, when he dropped it in late 2018, the music video reached a million views
within the first week and the song also received some radio play. The million spent on the
wardrobe and props for that music video were completely worth it:
All of the
success has allowed him to build himself a 17-million-dollar mansion which includes a
Segway room, a storage room for his marble tiles and even
a dungeon:
Let us know if you want us to piece together a The Rich Life video on your boy. It'll probably
be even tougher to try and piece together but that's what we do here. This was
a fun video to make because this dude is seriously entertaining.