Select/Reject are a three-piece rock band from Vienna built on a simple but radical idea: play EVERYTHING you love, reject what you don’t.
The Origin Story, from Nicholas’ perspective
It was a cold January evening in 2017 when Nicholas stumbled into an Orthodox New Year’s party at an apartment in Vienna, where he knew almost no-one. As one does, he talked to the attendants, until one of them – who happened to be Eva – asked out of the blue “By the way, do you sing?”
“Do you sing?”
Not being shy about his then very amateurish musical ability Nicholas of course answered “Yes!”. Upon which Eva answered (in a very rough paraphrase) “There’s this guy next door who is really looking for someone to make music with”.
And a few minutes later Nicholas and Robo were rehearsing their first ever song together next door. (As far as the author can remember it was a cover of Otherside by The Red Hot Chili Peppers, but there may have been something else, too.)
From there it was a long way to come up with what Select/Reject is now: First, they played covers. All over the place. Nicholas wanted to cover Skunk Anansie and Adele – so they did. Rob wanted to cover Audioslave. So they did. The Beatles. Frank Sinatra (in the version of Sid Vicious). Eddie Vedder. Robbie Williams. And many others. This wide range of source material was what brought up the name “Select/Reject”.
Not long after, Nicholas figured out he wanted to write his own music. He didn’t know how to write music. Naturally, that didn’t stop him in the least. The first song he came up with was “Fall”. It’s… very “early”. It was performed about 3-4 times in total. BUT, it was a start.
The second song Nicholas wrote was “The Loneliest Place”, and it was the first song that used a semblance of musical principles – well it has multiple key changes, a very segmented structure, weird harmonics… BUT Select/Reject still perform it to this day!
The growth
Since then the band has assembled a body of original work that moves freely between folk-rock and heavy metal, deadpan comedy and lyricism — all within the same set. There’s folk songs, punk anthems, metal riff-fests, pop hooks and the inevitable country song. Select/Reject’s identity is one unbound by genre. They reject the status quo and what they select they play with gusto.
Their instrumentation is deceptively lean — electric guitar moving fluidly from clean to heavily distorted and back, acoustic guitar for songs that call for it, violin, octave ukulele (the “grunge uke”), vocals, and backing tracks — yet the sound is full, punchy, and consistently surprising. The violin adds both texture and melody: weaving through the quieter songs with precision and cutting through the heavier moments with equal assurance.
“A Select/Reject concert is like a journey — and as with the best journeys, the trip itself is the destination.”
Lyrically, they cover a range of ground that few bands dare: climate change, utopia, mortality, relationships in their messy reality, social justice — and, yes, just nonsense like an ode to bad weather or about unreliable drummers.
The Lineup
Robert Emke — Guitars · Bass · Composition
Nicholas Shore — Vocals · Ukulele · Lyrics
Eva Götz — Violin
Select/Reject means never deciding on a category, a style, a tradition — just selecting what’s good, and rejecting what doesn’t fit. Admittedly there’s been more selecting than rejecting — hence the country song.