Joseph are the Portland-based, eerily-flawless harmonizing three-piece you’ve probably heard about. In case not, let’s jump in and show off one of their videos right now:

We caught up with one of the Joseph members, Natalie, to ask her a few things about the group, touring, and pot pie! Enjoy!

JU: In an interview you did recently with The Grapes of Rad Podcast you talked a lot about feeling a sense of place, both with family and where you three sisters grew up. Can you talk about that sense of place a bit, and then talk about how, through your music, you see yourself progressing through new places?

N: I’d say our music is totally rooted in the northwest landscape – the tall green trees, mountains, and waterfalls. We grew up on a piece of property out in an area covered in Christmas tree farms so I think you’ll find bits of tree-fort making and star gazing in these songs. It’s the simple things (chicken pot pie, bonfires, bare feet walking through tall grass) that help make sense of the more complicated life experiences… and I think when you remember where you’ve come from you can better decide where you’d like to go.

JU: Pot Pie?!? I love pot pie! How often would you eat it? What else did you like to eat with the family? Did you ever fight over leftovers?

N: Pot pie was our consistent favorite. My mom makes the butteriest, flakiest crust… pastry divinity… She always made two pies and if they weren’t gone that night we ate them in lunches the next day. Definite fighting over portion size. Her biscuits were perfect too… if she made stew and biscuits the jokes were inevitable: “Pass the honey, Honey!”

JU: What’s been the best and also the most surprising thing from your latest tour?

N: So many good surprising things! It was a delight – a real life dream. The best thing was simply making something that meant something to someone else, even one person. But it meant something to more than a few people! There were a few completely surreal moments while we performed our songs and I would notice mouths moving in the audience – total strangers were singing along! In Chicago! And Knoxville, Tennessee! And Arkansas! Wild. It hit me in those moments… these are not just my songs. These are songs of people feeling the same feelings and struggling in the midst of pain to look to hope as I am. Lots of us are going through the same things. It was very humanizing and made me feel not alone.

Also, I was completely shocked on a few occasions when people drove anywhere from 3 to 8 hours to come to a show. In Raleigh, North Carolina there were two people who had taken an overnight 10-hour train ride from Florida to see us. And in Chicago we had people who’d come from Pittsburgh, PA and Minneapolis, MN. It’s incredibly humbling and thrilling to get to meet these people and hear their stories.

JU: Did you take any mementos from the tour?

N: Lots! But I think I left more mementos than I brought home… When I am working with a lot of details I tend to get scattered and I lost many of my favorite things. I tweeted this: Tour casualities: left my rings in Phoenix, a sweater in NYC, a mic stand in Illinois, & now a wallet in Utah.

JU: When you first realized the sort of harmonies the three of you were capable of, what was your very first thought?

N: I thought… Why did I ever do music by myself? That was ridiculous.

JU: If you could have one person sign the guitar you three tour with, who would it be?

N: Probably Ben Gibbard. But that would be really awkward because I’m a major fan girl about his writing. So I choose Lianne La Havas instead.

JU: Last question, can you describe in words your feelings both for Portland and Seattle?

N: Big sigh. My heart swells at the thought of both. They are both home.

Portland is miles and miles of walking/biking by my treasured familiarities: the red Broadway bridge, the “Go By Train” sign, the many mysterious old homes from the 40’s in SE with green vines over peeling paint and neglected dandelion-covered lawns. Portland is a place to be barefoot. A place to look for paperback Rilke poems. A place to drink IPA’s.

Seattle is grand to me. I went to college here so I had the grandest thoughts when this place first got in me. Oh man, just thinking about driving that stretch of harbor-hugging road between Fremont and the U District at night… the twinkliest lights partying on black water… mesmerizing. Boats stacked on top of each other in those metal boat holder things. How do they get in there? They’re just there – waiting for someone to go somewhere in them. And likely for no reason but the fun of it! I don’t know, Seattle is full of wondrous things like that: ferries and bridges and late night coffee shops and massive cityscape scenes holding thousands of mysterious invisible people with their thousands of stories moving around in it. I feel small and insignificant here in a freeing way.