The story behind "Gregory Salmela Project" and "Fundamental Principles" 

Gregory Salmela Project is a side project featuring Grave Forsaken members Vaughan Gregory and Elias Salmela. The origins of Gregory Salmela Project go back to 2010 when Grave Forsaken returned from Easterfest. The band had recently recruited Richard Sallows on drums and they were keen to begin work on the follow up to "Fight To The Death". Richard was a more straightforward drummer than predecessor Dave Kilgallon so it was decided the new material would go in a rock direction. Vaughan had an ambition to record a double album so with that in mind the band began working on about 25 tracks. These tracks featured newly written songs, as well as old songs from previous projects that had never been properly recorded. As 2010 progressed the new project hit a few roadblocks. Busy with young children and family life, the band members found it hard to spend time on the new music. Furthermore, Vaughan was second guessing the wisdom of bringing the intensity down after two well-received thrash albums. These dilemmas resulted in the project stalling for a number of months. In late 2010, Richard left the group under amicable circumstances, putting a question mark over the future of the project. The end result was that Vaughan had a number of incomplete demos on his hard drive and Elias also had tracks on his home computer. The guys were really unsure about the best way forward.  

The band briefly reunited with Dave Kilgallon and Simon Hoggett in early 2011 and played another Easterfest. A snap decision was made to go into the studio and record another thrash album with Dan Holmes producing. The result was "Reap What You Sow". New songs were written for the album meaning "End Of Days" was the only song from the rock demo sessions that got used. This meant there was still a great number of half finished tracks sitting on computer hard drives. One of those tracks was "Rockin' At The Castle" and it was included on the 2011 live album "Light The Hall II".  

Following the release of "Reap What You Sow" Vaughan made the decision to pick the 8 best demos on his hard drive and finish them with new drummer Luke Gallagher. It was decided these tracks would be released as an EP called "Plugged Into The System". The band was well aware the production was reminiscent of the original 2005 "Grave Forsaken" EP but it was never meant to be a proper album. The idea was to make it a no frills home recording to ensure those tracks weren't wasted. "Plugged Into The System" was released independently in 2013 and was met with a mixed response. The general feedback was the EP was a step back for the band after 3 Dan Holmes produced thrash albums.  

Following the release of "Plugged Into The System", Elias decided to finish the demos on his computer in a similar manner. Intended to be another Grave Forsaken release, the project took on the name "Fundamental Principles". During this time, Grave Forsaken was recording a new thrash album with producer and guest drummer Josh Gallagher. Effectively, there were two projects happening simultaneously. When the band put out a free download compilation called "10 Years" in 2014 they included a song from each project on the release. There was some confusion amongst supporters of the band as the two new tracks sounded radically different from each other, with good reason!  

Another year or so went by and Elias was still sitting on these tracks. He had spent time getting some guest musicians to appear, as well as getting contributions from members of Grave Forsaken. Vaughan and Elias were keen for the material to get released but it no longer really felt like a Grave Forsaken project. After much deliberation it was finally decided to release the 12 tracks under the name "Gregory Salmela Project" and make them available free to Grave Forsaken supporters.

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