Married to the Music w/The Polk Duo

The Poetry Cafe

Host Josephus interviews Casey and Miranda Polk, known as The Polk Duo, about their nine-year journey as a musical duo and married couple. T

Key takeaways

• Casey and Miranda Polk met while playing in the jazz band at North Carolina A&T State University.
• Miranda resigned from an eight-year teaching career due to burnout and anxiety related to working in a Title 1 school.
• Casey used Craigslist every Tuesday to consistently advertise his video game composing services, which eventually led to professional opportunities.
• The duo's early professional efforts included printing four-song jazz CDs at home as wedding favors.
• The couple emphasizes that success requires 'jumping out of the plane'—taking action before the parachute is fully open.

Main topics

• Marriage and musical partnership
• Career transitions from teaching to composing
• Faith-based decision making

Notable quotes

The parachute don't open until you jump out the plane.

Conclusion

A motivational episode demonstrating that persistence, consistent effo

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:02) I'm Josephus, host of The Poetry Cafe. And on this week's episode, we have Miranda and Casey Polk, a.k.a. The Polk Duo. Speaker 5 (0:08) But I realized something with faith is that a lot of times you want the faith to step out, but the faith is stepping out. Speaker 3 (0:16) The parachute don't open Speaker 5 (0:17) until you jump out the plane. Right. But we stay trying Speaker 2 (0:19) to open up Speaker 5 (0:20) that parachute in the plane. Yeah, it don't work that way. Speaker 3 (0:21) Here for you inside The Poetry Cafe. Speaker 3 (0:31) Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of the Poetry Cafe, where we feed your mind, your body, and your soul. From our Greensboro studios, here at the Triad Stage, we present weekly guests and live recordings. Join us as we listen to new works, share great stories, and build community that connects and changes the world. Here on the Poetry Cafe. And today we have none other than the Polk Duo. You Speaker 4 (0:57) post every Tuesday for Speaker 3 (0:58) how long before you got a hit? I Speaker 4 (1:00) mean... I couldn't even tell you. So Speaker 3 (1:02) that's the work Speaker 4 (1:03) right Speaker 3 (1:03) there that people be missing out on. It Speaker 5 (1:04) was consistent. Speaker 4 (1:05) To post every week, every Tuesday, a new ad. Even when I was working on a project, I would still be posting every single week. Speaker 3 (1:14) So Stick It Stay where you're at. We'll be right back after the break. Speaker 3 (1:22) Thank you so much for tuning in to the one and only Poetry Cafe feeding your mind and your body and your soul. For more information and behind the scenes footage, check us out on our Patreon or slide on over to www.thepoetrycafe and grab you some merch. And now, back to the show. And welcome back from the break. We are in studio with the one and only Polk duo, KC and Miranda Polk, hanging tight with us here inside the studio. Speaker 3 (2:06) My man Steve Harvey says you cannot open your parachute until you jump out the plane. And man, it's crazy. Sometimes you got to leap, leap like a leap of faith and you're cascading down. So, you know, poets and musicians and dreamers are always, you know, building the plane in mid-flight. But sometimes you got to jump. You got to jump in order to spread your wings. You got to jump in order to get out the plane, out the parachute. And today we're talking about just that, you know, faith and love and just following your vision. It's at the Portrait Cafe with the Polk Duo, y'all. Check it out. Speaker 3 (2:43) Bring them up to speed. You know what I'm saying? For those of you who do not know, you know, introduce yourselves to the people. Speaker 4 (2:50) My name is Casey Polk. I'm normally just the guitar player of the group and the producer of the group. So I'm normally not the one on the microphone. So this is a little different for me. Speaker 5 (3:03) But he does talk. And I'm his wife. I'm Miranda Polk and I am the vocalist. Speaker 4 (3:08) Polk do well. And Speaker 3 (3:10) how long has Polk Duel actually been a thing? Speaker 4 (3:13) This is an easy answer, because as long as we've been married. So it's going on nine years. Since 2014, we got married. Speaker 4 (3:21) So how Speaker 3 (3:22) do you get married and decide we're going to be a group? Speaker 5 (3:24) Well, to be honest, Casey and I met at the illustrious North Carolina A &T State University. Aggie Pride. And we met in the jazz band. There was a couple times we actually had songs together. Speaker 4 (3:36) And Speaker 5 (3:36) so one song in particular, Tenderly, people just swooned when they saw us performing. Like, they were going to put us together. We were already feeling each other, but it was just like, y'all got to do this. So I think when we got together, we kind of knew. it would be a thing because we both enjoyed music and um casey had a thing for a group called tuck and patty i don't know if you ever heard of them but they're a husband and wife voice and guitar and so i kind of feel like i feel like he was praying on me for this for this moment he set you up yeah he loved that duo set up and so when we got married we were actually We were broke. Let me add this part. We were broke. Okay. I don't know why people say that because it ain't funny. We needed to give the guests like a thank you for coming. So we recorded a four song jazz CD, if you will, like printed them at home and a CD. What do you call it? CD burner. Yeah. CD burner and replicator and all that. And yeah, we got like our Speaker 4 (4:37) wedding. Yeah. Gift. Gift. Like the party gift. And Speaker 5 (4:41) I forget what the. performance was in particular where somebody's like, what Speaker 4 (4:45) y'all call yourselves? And we was like, poke duo or Speaker 5 (4:49) he called us the poke duo. We just went with it. That was it. We didn't even, yeah, we didn't have time to think of a name. Speaker 3 (4:56) Nice. Yeah. So you gave people a CD as a parting gift. Speaker 5 (5:01) Yeah. Speaker 3 (5:02) At the wedding. Speaker 5 (5:03) And Speaker 3 (5:03) that was the beginning of it all. Speaker 5 (5:06) Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't know at what point we decided like, let's do this. But I feel like it just always made sense. What do you think, Casey? Yeah, Speaker 4 (5:15) definitely. Because we would get hired to play weddings, stuff like that. So it's like, what do we call ourselves as people are trying to book us? You know, we need a website. Yeah. Now, are people trying to book you Speaker 3 (5:25) from the wedding CD? Not necessarily. Or Speaker 5 (5:28) how they Speaker 3 (5:28) found out about you prior to? We Speaker 5 (5:29) had a mutual friend, actually, Justin Lewis. Okay. He was the first person. I think he got married like a little bit before us. something he actually wanted us to he asked us to sing at his reception so I think that kind of pushed us as like people seeing us as a thing people who hadn't seen us in the jazz band so Speaker 3 (5:50) that was then yeah so what about now what are Speaker 5 (5:52) you Speaker 3 (5:52) doing now nine years later what has the Polk Duel accomplished where are you all at now that's the Polk was y'all I ain't gonna look is it quad it's quad it's four y'all now the Polk Quartet the Polk Quartet Speaker 5 (6:06) I ain't going to lie. When you said nine years later, in that sense, it made me think, should we be Speaker 4 (6:11) further along? Speaker 5 (6:12) No, no, no, Speaker 3 (6:13) no. I mean, but I mean, but I mean, but you, I mean, you have a family. Yeah. You're still married. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You got two babies. That's a, that's a lot. Speaker 5 (6:22) You know, thanks for saying that because I'm going to be honest. And sometimes I have to remind myself we don't have a team. We have a village of people that help us in moments like this when we need somebody to watch the kids. Right. Speaker 3 (6:32) But Speaker 5 (6:33) sometimes you see people and you kind of compare and you start feeling like, man, I'm not at where I should be because I'm not grinding hard enough. Speaker 3 (6:39) And Speaker 5 (6:39) you don't realize that family really does take up a lot. Right. So that's what we've been doing. I mean, we had our first son in 2019 and then we all know in 2020. We just lost three years. You know what I'm saying? Because the pandemic, which, of course, that put a damper on things because performances, people Speaker 4 (7:00) weren't performing. Stopped. Right. Not existing. Everything stopped. Speaker 5 (7:02) Yes. Right now, we're raising our sons. I'm a stay-at-home mom. When I had my first son, I resigned. I was a music teacher for eight years in elementary school. Speaker 2 (7:11) Casey Speaker 5 (7:11) had been a music teacher and a band teacher for a few years, maybe four years. Yep. But he stopped maybe a year or two before me. So I'm currently a Speaker 3 (7:20) stay-at-home mom. Speaker 5 (7:21) What Speaker 3 (7:22) makes you resign from teaching after eight years, after having your first son? What makes you decision that solid? You can be like, I'm done with teaching. I'm about to raise this. Are Speaker 4 (7:30) they ready for the answer? Speaker 3 (7:32) Yeah. You want them politically Speaker 4 (7:34) correct? Speaker 5 (7:35) No, no. We need the real answer. Listen, I was burnt out. I was having anxiety. It was rough. And the people I was teaching were rough. Speaker 4 (7:47) Title one school title. Speaker 5 (7:48) And I had been in a title one school for eight years, but it was just, it was taking a toll on me. And even personally, and as a professional, I wasn't doing it. I mean, like part of the cool thing about teaching for a long time is you can recycle your lessons, Speaker 3 (8:03) but Speaker 5 (8:04) there's also a line. Cause you don't want to be complacent that you're not even trying to learn. And I, at that point, I wasn't even trying to learn. I would be like, we watching Toy Story, listen to the soundtrack, that's music. Like, I wasn't even trying. And I felt like I wasn't giving kids my best. Speaker 4 (8:19) I Speaker 5 (8:19) was easily annoyed by things that were, you know, annoying. But I think also because that last year I was pregnant, it was just kind of like too much. And I just, I went back and forth about it. And I asked Casey, I was like. I just don't think I can do it. And he was just like, because he had taught, he had been in the trenches too. He was like, don't Speaker 4 (8:40) do it. Speaker 5 (8:41) So because I had that support and I'm going to be, can I be totally transparent? People may not notice. So when I resigned, Casey was working at a guitar store. We didn't have no money like that. It Speaker 4 (8:55) wasn't flowing like that. Speaker 5 (8:56) It wasn't flowing, but he had enough, you know, understanding and him to be like it's just not worth the stress yeah Speaker 3 (9:05) and Speaker 5 (9:05) he understood and i i couldn't believe he was saying like leave because at that point i was bringing in the more the money right Speaker 3 (9:13) and Speaker 5 (9:14) he was just like we'll figure out a way so ever since then you know god's been providing we've been figuring out a way and things are