Local sibling duo band Luana Moth will perform at Sidestage on Jan. 24, 2027, sharing a bill with Habibi and Holy Void. The show is a part of Winterruption Winnipeg 2027, presented by Real Love Winnipeg and the West End Cultural Centre.
Luana Moth is a character who came about when Tony Mazza found a note while walking in Gimli. Tony said the note “had this really cryptic poem, and on the back was scribbled ‘Luana Moth,’ which [he] thought was the title of the poem, and ended up being the name of the person who wrote it.” From there, it spiraled into a story, and it inspired everything.
The character of Luana Moth brings the audience on many journeys, and the audience can see her evolution. When asked who Luana Moth is today, Giovanna Mazza said that “[they] ended up finding out or learning more about her and the myth of her, just from communicating with people, specifically in Gimli.”
“The more that we have been able to perform and tell this story and become soul-bound to [Luana Moth’s] experience, it becomes far more relatable than I could have ever imagined,” she said.
“You can boil things so simply down to just the relatability of possibly being an outsider or an outcast in a social community group […] but clearly the things that she has experienced and encountered were far [grander] than [what] we could ever understand.”
Giovanna mentioned her relationship with Tony has “changed a lot” since making music together, describing it as a “very deep-rooted unspoken trust.” She continued, “we are kind of in a different universe, our hands are cemented together, and we both know that we’re in this for the long haul.” Tony included that “the fundamental of our relationship hasn’t changed, really. It’s more about what we spend our time doing.”
He mentioned that most of their time together is spent on working and creating music, and they both consider it fun. The duo shared that they are extremely passionate to be working together on this project. “There’s just a new avenue to channel our energy and I would say for the both of us, we’re pretty one-track minded people,” shared Giovanna.
Both Giovanna and Tony’s paths to Luana Moth are fundamentally different. Giovanna shared that Tony has always been musical and knew that he wanted to make music, whereas her path was more winding.
“I always knew that I could sing, but I have such young memories of listening to pop stars and [funnily] enough thinking, ‘I love to sing. I love to perform, but I don’t have any rooted connection in making music,’” shared Giovanna. “I wanted to get into filmmaking. I was really set on being a theatre performer because I really wanted to tell a story. And then that’s when things started to fall in with Luana Moth,” Giovanna said. She explained that she liked that Luana was a character she could both play and have creative control over. On the other hand, Tony told the Manitoban that he was “immediately infatuated” with creating music when he got a guitar at 10 years old. “I honestly didn’t really learn a lot of other people’s stuff […] I only know my songs and even then, it’s kind of funny. I can’t sit down and play a song [from] beginning to end because [in] our songs there’s so much electronic production,” Tony noted.
The band said a “huge portion” of Luana Moth’s story has been mapped out. “It’s just a matter of picking sections and deciding what’s the music going to sound like for that and then writing the music,” said Tony, commenting that there are many “skeletal musical projects” in his storage.
Currently, both Giovanna and Tony have been exploring the sonic palette that is going to work for Luana’s journey.
Giovanna shared that she always knew about her self-directorial side, but it was an insecurity and something she suppressed.
Giovanna shared that her initial desire was for Luana to sound “ethereal” and “soft,” but the project took a different direction. “No matter how hard I tried, Luana Moth always presented as someone who was really angry and really hurt and abrasive […] sometimes I’m literally just growling on stage.”
Tony said he realized Giovanna could sing when he heard her sing at her high school musical, and that was when things began clicking into place for his vocalist and he could stop searching. “It was like Luana Moth was living inside of me the whole time,” said Giovanna.
The duo noted that they will play unreleased music they have been working on over the summer at their gig in the new year. “It’s an honour to share a bill with [Holy Void],” shared Giovanna. “The same with Habibi. I just love women, so I love an all-women group, specifically in surf rock,” said Giovanna.
“[For Habibi,] I’m so excited to play with out-of-towners and get their perspective on what we’re doing,” shared Tony.
