And you thought secret agent school wouldn’t pay off — Keith Macpherson, who has ingeniously disguised himself as a pay phone, hides from longtime songwriting partner Renée Lamoureux

After the thousands of acts this decade that have had the “indie” label slapped upon them because of their sound rather than their label status, it’s refreshing to find Keith Macpherson & Renee Lamoureux. The singer-songwriter duo from Winnipeg have spent the last 11 years writing, recording, performing and touring on their own steam, struggling to find ears for their positive radio-friendly pop without giving in to the terms and conditions of label enslavement.

While choosing to go it alone has given the pair the freedom to operate exactly as they see fit, it’s also made their aspirations of mainstream success hard to reconcile. As a result, they’ve seemingly played every college foyer and coffee shop in North America for most of the last decade with limited success, despite several awards and mentions in the national press. Their hopes of building a following seemed frustratingly out of reach when it came to releasing and touring behind their third and latest release, Revolution, and the band found themselves knee-deep in a rut.

Still, playing by your own rules does have its advantages. Changing the name of the band from Easily Amused to Keith & Renee, a shift that by industry standards would be far too risky, definitely falls in this category. When it results in having one of your songs featured in an AT&T commercial, all the better.

“We had been together for 10 years, and we were kind of outgrowing the Easily Amused name,” Lamoureux explains. “People would always be like, ‘Are you Easily, or are you Amused?’ I remember when I first joined the band they were already Easily Amused, and that didn’t connect with me, but the music always did. We really wanted to be true to ourselves, so we thought ‘hey, why not just Keith and Renee?’ It’s who we are.”

In addition to the cosmetic adjustment, Lamoureux and Macpherson decided to retool their typically gruelling tour schedule to focus on quality over quantity. They’re forgoing the all-too-familiar drudge of playing “Coke machine shows, ” as Lamoureux calls them — performances at obscure times and locations on campus, usually with paltry attendance. To complete the rejuvenation, the songwriters also began changing the way they operate musically, becoming more collaborative. Lamoureux says the shift away from their more individualistic style was a natural one, a progression that happened gradually as the songwriters matured and grew closer as creative partners:

“We perform together so much,” she explains, “and throughout the years, we were just writing more and more together. We really respect each other’s ideas, and I think that just happened over time, too, where we were just more open to it. I really respect all the times when he’ll come and say ‘yeah, it’s not good’ or ‘it’s good.’ He just kind of bruises the ego.”