PENDLETON — Local Pendleton musician James Dean Kindle is set to release his first album in six years, and his first solo project.

The album, “Trail Mix,” comes out April 6. The album falls somewhere within western swing and cowboy trail songs, with country and folk influences. Most of the songs explore different facets of romantic love through nature-based images and metaphors, with a few “slight detours from the trail,” in Kindle’s words.

Kindle grew up in Pendleton, moved away, and returned about 10 years ago. When he’s not writing music for himself or performing with his band, he works as the executive director of the Oregon East Symphony. He has been in bands since he was in high school, including the Eastern Oregon Playboys from 2007-21, and now, at 41, he is backed by a group of musicians who make up Kindle’s Country Combo.

The 10 songs on the album cover feelings of lust (“Middle of Spring”), affection (“Meet Me at the Edge of Town”), yearning (“Cool Water”), lost love (“Should’ve Been Me”), and dedication (“Our Day Will Come”), painted against Western images of mountains, plains, rivers and rolling hills.

Sitting on a white plastic chair on the porch of his farmhouse near Mission, Kindle discussed the new album and his thoughts on songwriting for more than an hour on a Saturday afternoon in mid-March. What follows are edited excerpts from the conversation.

One thing that I was wondering about is how you decided which song you wanted to open with?

“So the opening song, “Meet Me at the Edge of Town,” made sense for a variety of reasons.

I think it’s just a strong song and a strong recording. It’s always nice to open up the album with something strong, but then also, the song is like an invitation.

The whole album is really just a bunch of love songs, right? And so it’s like beckoning your lover to come and join you. And in this case, because a lot of the album is using the landscape and the wilderness as a metaphor, it’s like come see me outside of the town. Leave that behind. And so that seemed to make sense for it to be the opener of the record.”

It starts introducing you to some of the major themes of the album, for sure. How did you approach the theme of writing love songs in this case?

“I think the germ of the album started years ago, probably back in 2018. I had this idea sitting in the back of my mind — cowboy songs that are specifically about love — and so, over the years, the songs started taking shape.

A lot of the concepts for the songs and melodies came from hiking around here, specifically up in the Umatilla River Canyon. There’s a lot of trails in that neck of the woods that I’m quite intimate with. They’re places I’ve been going since I was a kid.

Through the course of doing that, it was like, ‘OK, well, there are these concepts about nature that can serve as metaphors for different dimensions of romance.’”

As you’re approaching songs, do you have a set process?

“They’re all different. They’re like children; they’re all special in their own way. Sometimes, it’s a melody that can come and then, you know, you eventually have to figure out the theme of the song and then it’s weaving lyrics into that. Sometimes I’ll have some kind of philosophical concept, and it’s like, “How do I convey this complex idea that I’ve internalized?”

And then sometimes words will come first. And then, of course, there’s these rare occasions where a song somehow plops out fully formed, and you feel like you’re a conduit.”

Did that happen at all on this album?

“Did it? No, no, although some of them came pretty quick. “Meet Me at the Edge of Town” came out pretty quick. I had the refrain for that song hanging out in my brain for a long time, and then I think the whole song came out in one songwriting session. It’s really satisfying when that happens, but there are other times where you labor over a song for years. I certainly have stuff I’ve been tinkering with for decades.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Neil Young, and he’s like, “You never finish a song, you just leave it alone.” And sometimes that’s what you have to do.”

Were there any songs that were a particular challenge to feel like you had gotten to the point where you were ready to leave it alone for this album?

“I feel like that actually happened with “Middle of Spring.” I would finish one verse and then I probably wouldn’t get to another verse for like another three months. I feel like the song didn’t fully get completed until maybe two months before going into the studio to record it.”

I think for me, “Death and the Cowboy” was my personal favorite. But it did not necessarily feel, lyrically, like the rest of the album.

If we’re thinking of the album as a concept of love, you’ve called this a detour from the trail. What made you want to include little detours and how do you think they fit into the overall arc of the album?

“Well, first of all, I think someone could make a philosophical argument that there is love in death.

But, musically, it’s a trail song. It’s a story song, and it’s really the only story song on the album. I don’t write a lot of story songs; a lot of my lyrics are about abstract concepts.

There was a much different process behind writing this song, too, because I was basing it off of an old English folk ballad called “Death and the Lady.” There’s a lot of different versions of it, but the core concept is about this noble woman who was out one day and meets death personified, and death informs her that she’s going to die soon and so she attempts to forestall her death by trying to buy death off. And, of course, that doesn’t work.

I thought it was an evocative theme and it would be fun to rewrite that in a country-western idiom.”

How do you see this album fitting into other work that you’ve produced?

“I mean, in some ways it’s definitely a departure from the Eastern Oregon Playboys, because that band was all over the place stylistically, and certainly over the trajectory of that band, the albums became more focused, but I think this is probably the most thematically and sonically focused record that I’ve ever released. And I feel like it’s some of the strongest songs I’ve written.

If I take stock of what I released 10 years ago, or even like 20 years ago, I’ve seen a definite development. And it makes me excited, right? Because it’s like, well, what are my songs going to be like in 10 years from now?”

It’s always cool to think about how you have changed, and how your writing or your songs have changed. How did you get into music?

“As far as wanting to pursue it as a vocation, that didn’t really happen until I was 18 or 19. When I was 18 and going to Blue Mountain Community College, I had a punk rock band that I was in with my friends Paul and Keely.

We had this punk rock trio, this garage punk band called the Sick Kids. And I just had this epiphany moment. Our start time got pushed back because Paul had to get off of his job and so he was late coming in, and he immediately picked up his bass and then we launched into our one anthem song called “Dodge City.”

And as soon as the drums kicked in, the whole place exploded. Everybody was singing the lyrics with us. It was a real transcendental moment for me. And I think that’s where the switch was flipped, and I was like, ‘I want to do this for the rest of my life.’”

Wow. It’s cool that you have such a specific moment. How often do you think about that?

“Just every now and then. It certainly grounds me. Because I’ve been doing this for so long, I’ve had many, many crises of faith in what I’m doing. And certainly, the pandemic really challenged that.”

I was wondering about that.

“For me, it wasn’t a very inspiring time, to be quite honest, but I still plugged along and did stuff as best I could. And part of that, too, is the Eastern Oregon Playboys decided in fall of ‘21 to go on an indefinite hiatus. And that was tough because that was my primary artistic vehicle since like 2007. When that band started, so much of my identity was tied up in that.

And so I definitely spent a couple years in the wilderness, just trying to find myself. I think I came out on the other end stronger, but it was really a test.”

That makes sense.

Do you have any favorite lyrics or phrases that you got to use that you were excited about?

“I like ‘Throw me in your campfire until I start to smolder / Let the wind carry my smoke beyond the plateau’ (from “Meet Me at the Edge of Town”). I feel like it’s an evocative image.”

Yes, there’s some very clear, specific imagery in the songs.

“Yeah, there’s too many. Don’t make me choose.”

What do you hope, when people listen to this, they take away or experience?

“I would hope that it provides somebody with, perhaps, some kind of intellectual and poetic insight into love, what that means to them and about what nature means to them. And then, in the process, hopefully get them up and dancing a little bit.”

Album Information

“Trail Mix” was recorded and mixed by Mike Vasquez (formerly of Sweatbox Studios, Austin, Texas) at the historic Peter Cherry House in Astoria, from November 2022 to January 2023. Featured musicians include members of Kindle’s Country Combo: pedal steel guitarist Roger Conley (formerly of The Countrypolitans), bassist Aaron Engum and drummer/percussionist Dan Galucki (Margo Cilker, Run On Sentence). Roberta Lavadour of Mission Creek Press did the typesetting and letterpress printing for the album jacket.

Kindle’s Album Release Party

Kindle is hosting a release party for “Trail Mix” at the Pendleton Eagles Lodge, 428 S Main St, on Saturday, April 6.

Western Swing dance lessons start at 6 p.m.

Music starts at 7 p.m.

Featuring guest performers Wes Youssi, Thomas Paul, Mike Vasquez, Adam Lange, Carl Scheeler and more.

Admission is $15 at the door.