Viva Oliver Tree!!!
Salute to a Warrior
Oliver Tree, the American musician and “pop absurdist” artist, died last week in a freak helicopter crash while at the beginning leg of his latest world tour. The sad irony is that today would have been his 33rd birthday.
I am one of many who knew nothing about Tree before he died, but as after his passing can see the immense talent of this guy. The little I know of his path with music goes like this, he was born in Santa Cruz, CA in 1993 and grew up making music with kids on his block and later with high school friends. When he was 17 he was signed to a record label out of London and his journey began.
Things did not pop off right away for Oliver, however. He worked hard at creating music under his moniker, Tree, and wanted to be taken seriously as a great artist but was only known by a few within the EDM scene. Breaking through the noise of the internet to be seen and then heard became the conundrum he set himself to solve. While still making music, Oliver went to CalArts for his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Music Technology. For his senior dissertation he wrote a paper called “How to Turn Yourself into a Meme,” arguing that artists could break the matrix of doomscrollers attention span by incorporating elements of shock marketing, publicity stunts, and the creation of characters. Then he fucking did it.
The breakthrough happened when he created a character named “Turbo.” (A possible callback to the 1990s TV show American Gladiators where the character of Turbo featured heavily.) For Turbo’s wardrobe, Oliver constructed a look that incorporated accessories from his youth like the 1980s ski jacket his mother used to wear, the little red sunglasses that he rocked as a child, and an extra flared pair of JNCO jeans that skateboarding ravers like myself wore in the ‘90s. The look was coming together, but the final touch that blasted Oliver’s image through the attention deficient maelstrom of the masses was an exaggerated bowl haircut.
So now he had an image that stood out but Oliver wasn’t finished yet! Besides turning himself into a fashion icon, Oliver was a daredevil extraordinaire. He began incorporating really rad tricks on a mini-razor scooter into his videos. Oliver wasn’t just doing 360 tailspins from a one-foot drop, he was jumping off roofs and doing backflips from steep inclines while people watched in stunned amazement.
In a digital media space dominated by prank videos, daredevil stunts, and weird dumb short nonsensical memes, Oliver was cracking the code! These antics alone would have jettisoned him into TikTok, Kik, and stupid video stardom like so many annoying bastards doing these things today. However, Oliver was different. His memefication of self was the Trojan Horse which allowed him to grab your attention long enough to start hearing his music and his music is the best part of Oliver Tree. He made some damn good music, fusing a collection of vibes and sounds from the 1990s and 2000s into a form of pop-EDM. Frankly, the EDM scene was waiting and in need of someone like him to bring some human warmth to the stage.
But Oliver wasn’t done yet. With a growing budget he now had a chance to implement skills learned at CalArts and began producing, writing, and directing his own music videos. Then the big tours started happening and Oliver got a chance to creatively dictate his stage shows, which were immersive worlds with an ironic joyful twist. I saw one show performance where Oliver starts the song by doing a rolling backflip on his mini-scooter over a band mate kneeling on the ground. He landed that shit like a boss and then he dropped the beat.
Being a lifelong Beastie Boys fan myself, I can testify that Oliver Tree was carrying the torch that Mike D, Ad-Rock, and the great MCA had sparked decades ago.
Where did the real breakthrough start for Oliver Tree? Maybe it began when he decided to stop taking himself so seriously and focused on having fun.
That said, it’s clear that Oliver’s time taking his art seriously was necessary to allow him to learn the tools which then allowed him to then loosen the artistic reins. Anyone can jump around on a stage just having fun, but Oliver was executing technique and skill. He was obviously gifted, but he also talked about the years he had to work at learning how to sing. So, while being gifted, his greatest gift of all could have been his artistic discipline and faith in himself.
I watched a micro-interview where Oliver talks about how at 13 his cousin died of spinal meningitis and how the death was his first real wake up call about the brevity of our time on this earth. He decided then that he was going to go hard in life and try to experience as much as he could before he was gone. At first that led to a drug addiction, but it also led to a life swimming in art and creation. He found refuge and healing from drug addiction through music and like all good shaman the music transformed him.
Oliver was a media trickster too. For his fourth, and final album, released only two months ago, he started telling podcasters that he sold his $17 million mansion and began living out of a suitcase. He traveled the world and recorded tracks from his new album in tons of different countries. The story was compelling. A rising musical star sells his big money mansion because it took him away from his heart and now he was just a traveling troubadour bringing his music to the people.
Only thing with that was He Was Making It Up! LOL. He was caking but he wasn’t making Bad Bunny money. As the saying goes, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn,” and Oliver could spin more yarn than an industrial spinning mill.
In other words, he was lying about being as rich as he said he was as a troll or comment about the absurd wealth celebrities can accrue. Or he knew that the story of a rich person in America selling everything to search for real happiness would stick in the algorithm. Whatever the reason, Oliver captured your attention and then pointed to his music. In that sense, such lying seems justifiable because it leads to a living beating human heart processing this world so suddenly plunged into the depths of Chapel Perilous. He was a trickster par excellence.
In a near final social media communique, posted on April 1, 2026, Tree told fans that he was leaving Atlantic records because they were threatening to shelf his album. He said that the label wanted him to make more songs tailored to TikTok’s short form videos. Tree, who had spent two years recording the music for the release relented and said the album was ready. The label disagreed. He then took the situation to his fan base who overwhelmed the label with mail and messages which allowed Tree to leave Atlantic, form his own label, Alien Boy Records, and release his album on his own label on April 24, 2026.
Oliver began his world tour in Latin America and one of his first stops was Brazil. However, a fateful trip in a helicopter between shows took this Icarus to the ground once and for all. Tree was one of six people who died on the morning of Sunday June 14 when two choppers collided mid-flight in Rio de Janeiro.
Oliver would have been 33 years old today.
This is a salute to a musical warrior. A person who crafted his own identity from the detritus of ‘90s pop culture and when given the spotlight shined like a star should, reminding others that they too are stars.
Viva Oliver Tree!!!!
Lastly, FREE PALESTINE!!!! The Genocide continues. The UN has proven conclusively that Israel’s IDF is killing babies on purpose and that’s just fucking sick. Again, FREE PALESTINE!!!
Peace Out!!!
Prop Anon