PENDLETON — Musicians James Dean Kindle and Addison Schulberg arranged an original score for a true Western crime podcast centering around a corrupt rancher and his nonexistent cattle empire.

Northwest Public Radio and KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio, both members of the NPR Network, pair up for an investigative podcast about cow king conman Cody Easterday, the rancher who defrauded Tyson Food Inc. out of millions of dollars by charging the company for the cost of purchasing and feeding 265,000 cattle that did not exist.

Kindle and Schulberg were given the opportunity to compose the soundtrack for the upcoming podcast “Ghost Herd.”

“I bought a lot of soundtracks when I was in high school, just because I was really into drama,” Kindle said. “I was in the theater department. Soundtracks are also kind of a great way to get a cool compilation of music.”

The duo sat in front of the soundboard where they pieced their compositions. Instruments and sound equipment were scattered throughout the studio space — upright pianos, guitars, tambourines, a drum set, sound amps and more.

Although Kindle and Schulberg have been playing music since their childhood, this was the first time they composed a soundtrack together.

“I think it’s an interesting story of white-collar country crime, white-collar farm crime,” Schulberg said. “Farming has been such a massive industry.”

Richland correspondent Anna King, who tells the story of Easterday, reached out to Kindle to score the soundtrack.

“She wanted some very local regional music because it is kind of a Pacific Northwest, Columbia Basin program in a way, and so she wants the music to come from that region,” Kindle said.

For years, Kindle has created music that identifies with the Pacific Northwest country style.

“It’s a magical matchup because there’s a certain intersection of regional country styling that JD has been exploring very heavily,” Schulberg said. “He’s written a lot of wonderful, quintessential PNW country-style tunes that really represent the area.”

Kindle reached out to his longtime music companion Schulberg, who is part of two bands and is the head director of Pendleton’s Rock and Roll Camp, to help him compose the western criminal story.

The pair decided to reach out to local musicians Roger Conley, Andy Steel and Adam Lange to help create the full Pacific Northwest sound.

Unlike some films, where the composer has an opportunity to score while watching a visual scene. Schulberg and Kindle had to create several moods and sounds without hearing the whole podcast, which allowed the musicians to not be dependent on one product being completely finished before the next phase.

“I had listened to the pilot episode and of course I was familiar with the story,” Kindle said. “But the music was being recorded concurrently while the narration was being recorded. We discussed the scope of the project in terms of what kind of moods they needed to fill or fit and how they wanted that music delivered.”

It took them four to five weeks to complete the soundtrack, some of which can be heard in the trailer for “Ghost Herd.”

“Performing music, I think, the most magic that I experienced is creating something with other people,” Schulberg said. “So in this case, like, with JD working on both sides of the glass, and then seeing things come to life in here is a really magical experience.”

Northwest Public Radio and KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio will debut the first episode of “Ghost Herd” on Jan. 10 on www.ghostherd.org, NPR and Apple Podcast.