Cami Bradley has the time of her life filming music video in S-R tower

“Every day’s a prize, and sometimes you’ll find an answer in the sky,” is a line from Elton John’s “An Answer in the Sky.”

Cami Bradley, aka Carmen Jane, can relate to John’s deep cut since she found her answer in the sky with the help of director Ellen Picken.

After listening to Bradley’s moody, catchy and atmospheric single, “Numb,” which starts with a ticking time piece, Picken envisioned The Spokesman-Review clocktower.

Picken and her husband/director, Rajah Bose, who are the visual artists behind the Spokane-based creative agency Factory Town, were certain the local landmark would be the perfect setting for the clip.

“When it comes to the vision for our videos, we’re always looking around,” Picken said. “We file what we see in the library of space in our minds.”

Bose asked The Spokesman Editor Rob Curley for permission to shoot part of the “Numb” video inside the clocktower.

“Rob is such a connector that he made it happen,” Bose said. “Rob is so enthusiastic. He was so excited to have us there.”

Bradley, 32, who was a 7 cover feature in October, was over the moon to be shooting the video in a place she never thought she would visit.

“Like so many people who have lived here for years, I’ve looked up at the clocktower so many times,” Bradley said. “I never imagined being inside the clocktower. It’s so cool. It’s so historic and so Spokane.”

Bradley, Picken and Bose shot for two hours inside the clocktower in October. A restless but sensual Bradley, clad in funerial black, gyrates in front of the white light generated by the clock.

The trio had to create quickly since they only had so much time to work in front of the clock.

“It was amazing,” Bradley said while calling from her South Hill home. “It really helped make the video what it is. I have to give a huge shoutout to you guys for allowing us to make part of the video there.”

The four-minute-plus clip is a stylish and stimulating work, which evokes the many moods of Carmen Jane. Celeste Shaw, owner of Chaps Diner and Bakery, provides a big assist for allowing Bradley to shoot passages of the video in her claw foot bathtub and library in her home, which is southwest of Spokane.

“The music video is an extension of my songwriting,” Bradley said. “It allows my art to reach its full fruition. I love that it all happens in Spokane. There is so much here. Spokane is awesome, and so is the clocktower. We have no building like it in Spokane.

“I loved being up there and getting the tour. Rob took me to see the side of the tower with the gargoyles. I had no idea the gargoyles existed up there. I looked at that building a million times, and I didn’t know what was up there.”

“Numb,” which smacks of isolation and depression, sounds like it could have been written during the coronavirus. “I wish I were numb/I wish I could not feel this anymore.”

However, the baroque electro-pop tune was penned before the pandemic. “It’s fitting for what we’re living in, but the song was written before what we’re experiencing now,” Bradley said. “It fit the times.”

Bradley has morphed considerably from the pop-centric singer who earned notice on “America’s Got Talent” in 2013.

Bradley, who advanced to the finals and finished in sixth place, has developed a welcome edge. Bradley’s hair has become blonder over recent years, but her material is much darker than it was a half decade ago. “I’m not the same person I was a couple years ago,” Bradley said. “I think that’s a good thing.”

Expect more from Bradley, who releases a single about every six to eight weeks. There is a bigger project on the horizon.

“I have quite a bit of material,” she said. “There will be an album in the future. Stay tuned.”