Marty Zambotto remembers the first time he ever saw Eurovision. 

His father, a French national, played Zambotto an old VHS tape of ABBA performing Waterloo at the 1974 edition of the annual song contest. It was the song that would win that year’s event – and put the Swedish pop quartet on the path to global fame.   

Zambotto was four years old then, and immediately bewitched by what he saw. 

Fast forward 25 years and Zambotto has now seen that hallowed stage from a different angle. As his musical alter-ego Go-Jo, Zambotto represented Australia at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland. It was an experience he won’t ever forget. 

“It's one of the most magical memories,” he says. “I'm forever going to cherish that.” 

Zambotto already had an impressive career before Eurovision came knocking – in 2023, his viral hit single Mrs Hollywood amassed one billion views across all platforms and made him the ninth most streamed Australian artist that year. But after a childhood spent religiously tuning into Eurovision, it was learning he’d been chosen to represent Australia that remains “the most surreal feeling” of his life. 

It perhaps won’t surprise you to hear that the 29-year-old wrote Milkshake Man, the song he took to the Eurovision stage, specifically for the competition. Wild, wacky and ludicrously fun, it’s perfect for a competition that has long celebrated the ostentatious (previous editions of Eurovision have, after all, platformed everything from rapping astronauts to a Finnish death metal group who perform in monster masks).  

Zambotto says Milkshake Man is “all about confidence and self-expression”. 

“It's this world that I hope inspires other people to want to feel like the loudest and proudest version of themselves,” he says.  

Zambotto set out to capture that ethos on stage at Eurovision. During his Semi-Final performance, a dancer enters a giant blender in drab colours, looking unsure of herself, then exits in bold, bright hues. Between his bombastic dance moves – including hip gyrations a-plenty – Zambotto himself is transformed by the blender. He steps inside wearing a more modest jumpsuit, before jumping out amidst a plume of smoke in a skin-tight, sparkly blue one piece that would make Freddie Mercury proud.  

So how did Zambotto manage that costume change so quickly?  

“Magicians cannot reveal their secrets,” he laughs.  

The real answer, though, is “a lot of rehearsals”. Zambotto spent months preparing for Eurovision, working with two different vocal coaches and taking daily 80s aerobic dance classes to get as fit as possible. There were countless hours devoted to perfecting that spectacular performance. Zambotto then spent two weeks in Europe before Basel, hopping between 15 different countries to play Milkshake Man at the competition’s series of warm up shows.  

Not every Eurovision entrant plays those pre-parties. But given Australia has only been part of the competition since 2014, it was important to Zambotto to be at every single stop.  

“We really wanted to make a statement of Australia being there and showing Europe how much we honour being in the competition, and how committed we are to it,” he says.  

That tour schedule was the most chaotic two weeks of his life, Zambotto says, “but also a very fun and exhilarating time”. Between the performances and long press days, he even dodged arrest in Estonia, after his spirited hotel room rehearsals of Milkshake Man resulted in noise complaints and a stern visit from local police. 

“I told them, ‘I'm representing Australia in Eurovision this year’, he laughs. “And they were like, ‘Yeah, sure you are’ – now we need you to be quiet.”

As a longtime Eurovision fan, Zambotto loved the chance to peer behind the curtain and see how the competition functions. On Semi-Final night he remembers moving from the backstage area where artists would play ping pong and get their makeup done through to the series of four different waiting rooms, before finally being ushered on stage.  

While Zambotto didn’t make it to the Grand Final, he wouldn’t change anything about his Eurovision experience. The comments section of his performance, viewed 2.5M times in its first month online alone, is littered with viewers dismayed that Go-Jo didn’t go all the way. (“This is peak Eurovision, HOW did this not qualify?”, one representative comment reads). That conversation, he says, has perhaps ironically helped shoot Milkshake Man “into the stratosphere”. 

“I think the noise it created around ‘Go-Jo was robbed’ made a much bigger spark than if we were to have made the Grand Final,” Zambotto says. 

He’s certainly enjoyed some big moments since Eurovision wrapped – Zambotto has now sold out two London performances in a row off the back of the competition, charted in 15 countries with Milkshake Man, and made a fan out of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (plus Canadian PM Mark Carney to boot). The next Go-Jo track, he says, will be a collaboration with a fellow Eurovision artist – he became close friends with many of the other contestants during the road to Basel. 

Eurovision is an incredible platform for any musician – after it, it launched ABBA’s career all those years ago. Already, Zambotto says life feels forever altered by his time on that stage. 

“So many things have happened from Eurovision that I'm insanely grateful for,” Zambotto says. “It's introduced me to this whole new fan base. It’s been absolutely game changing.”  

Now, the world is waiting to see what the Milkshake Man whips up next.  

Go-Jo: Instagram