Sister act Joseph finds its voice in a familial place

When it came time for Joseph to record its anticipated sophomore album, the band found itself at a creative impasse. Natalie Closner, who fronts the Portland pop-folk trio with her younger twin siblings Allison and Meegan Closner, described her initial writing process as “a fabricated attempt at doing something good.”

“I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to really try hard to make something awesome,” Natalie Closner said. “And we didn’t really get very far with that, because as long as you say to yourself, ‘I’m going to do my best to write an anthem right now,’ it’s not organic. It’s not true. You’re starting from what you think someone wants to hear instead of what’s already within you.”

After a number of false starts, a song called “Honest” seemed to spring out of nowhere.

“I started writing in the margins of my journal, writing things I actually felt,” Meegan Closner said. “I wasn’t attempting to write anything profound, I was just writing my real thoughts.

“Which is probably how you should attempt songwriting in general,” she added with a laugh.

“Honest” turned out to represent a breakthrough for the band, and its new album, “I’m Alone No You’re Not,” gets its title from those lyrics. Though dropping artistic pretenses aided the creative process, Natalie Closner admits that came much easier for her sisters.

“They’re new to songwriting, and don’t really have any formulas or rules that they go by,” she said. “I’ve studied songwriting for years, and it became a little crafted on my end. With Meegan and Allie, they didn’t have any of that. … I think it’s just innately more honest because of that, and I’ve been held more accountable to that in my own writing.”

Before Joseph formed a few years ago, Natalie Closner had been touring as a singer-songwriter – she lived and performed in Spokane for a short period. But even she seemed to recognize that her material wasn’t clicking, feelings that were later substantiated by a close friend.

“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘You don’t mean this,’ ” Natalie Closner recalled. “ ‘You don’t even like your own songs. You’re just waiting for people to tell you that they like them.’ … I was obviously pretty floored by that, and that was when the idea came to me to invite Meegan and Allie into it.”

“Meegan and I didn’t make music until this band,” Allison Closner said. “We’re still figuring it out, but we get along together pretty well.”

“Genetically, there’s a weird vibration that comes from having a similar makeup,” Natalie Closner said. “There’s also this lifetime of shared experience that is just present whenever we’re trying to say anything. It’s not just one person’s voice, so I think it becomes more universal because it’s coming from three different perspectives.”

Joseph has garnered a lot of attention in a relatively short period of time. Following the release of its debut album, 2014’s “Native Dreamer Kin,” the band was signed by Dave Matthews’ label ATO Records. The Closners have since been featured on various festival lineups and late night television, and their busy touring schedule will keep them from their Portland home base for long stretches.

“There are definitely hard things about it, I’m not going lie about that,” Allison Closner said. “You’re away from home a lot of the time, but it’s such a cool thing. Only a certain percentage of people get to experience something like this.”

With obvious nods to the all-sister trio First Aid Kit, Joseph’s debut album, “Native Dreamer Kin,” was mostly acoustic and stripped down. You can still hear some of that on “I’m Alone No You’re Not,” but it’s primarily a synthesis of rustic folk and polished pop: The production still leans heavily on the delicate interplay of the sisters’ voices, but those harmonies are bigger and the arrangements more ornate.

Joseph has scheduled two upcoming shows in Spokane, both on Wednesday, though both have already sold out. The earlier of the two performances (at a location only revealed to ticket buyers) will feature the Closners alone onstage, and they’ll be joined by a three-piece backing band at the later Bartlett show.

“I had an incredible experience in Spokane and was super inspired by the arts community there,” Natalie Closner said. “Whenever we play a show in Spokane, it feels like a hometown show. In a lot of ways, the three of us feel at home.”