1. This one continues to wig people out and must truly take the cake: our birth dates and birth years mysteriously line up one year and one day apart from oldest to youngest. Sam was born June 3, 1985, Joe on June 4, 1986 and Matt on June 5, 1987. None of us are quite sure what it means, but it might have something to do with absolutely nothing at all.
2. As part of the Flying Nun 30th anniversary tour in 2011, T54 performed as backing band for David Saunders of the 3D’s. Although T54 had never listened to or even heard of the 3D’s before the show, the four of them kicked through a set of 11 classic Kiwi gems with such romance and accuracy that T54 drummer Matt Scobie famously wept (nearly uncontrollably) onstage throughout the second half of the performance.
3. T54 received a lucky break when they were invited to play the Auckland Big Day Out in 2011. The show was an absolute cracker despite being at 9 o’clock in the morning, but the group were subsequently voted the worst band on the New Zealand stage by a well-known New Zealand music publication whose title begins the letter “R”. The magazine was quoted as saying “…watching T54 was like walking into a teenage masturbatorium…” which was about the nicest and most intelligent thing they printed in that issue.
4. At one point near the beginning of T54, all three members of the group owned and drove battered ‘80s Ford Falcons. Joe owned a canary yellow 1980 XD station wagon, Sam owned a red 1981 XD sedan and Matt owned (but never finished) a rough as guts matte black and lowered 1984 XE ute. The fun was ruined the day Sam sold his XD and bought a Mazda.
5. Sammy’s theatre in Dunedin, where T54 recorded their debut full length In Brush Park, has long been reported as haunted. During the five days and five nights that the group was present some pretty bizarre and unaccountable things happened. Essential pieces of equipment frustratingly disappeared and reappeared days apart, bass player Sam Hood insistently reported tugging at his hair on three or four occasions, a constant odour of burnt toast could be smelt coming from an old disused kitchen in the rear of the building and what appeared to be the sound of shuffling feet was frequently heard from the fly tower above the stage. It made for a pretty uncomfortable and emotionally distraught atmosphere, eventually yielding a pretty uncomfortable and emotionally distraught debut full length.
