FROM IDOL TO LAST YEAR'S MODEL.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

As the singers on the American Idols Live! tour take the stage at the Staples Center tonight, the search for their replacements - next summer's headliners - is about to begin.

Hopefuls have already started standing in line and warming up their pipes at the Cow Palace in San Francisco for Thursday's nationwide auditions for season five of ``American Idol.''

Each season, Fox's wildly popular amateur singing contest discovers tomorrow's big stars - or maybe not.

Like contestants who have passed through earlier talent-show variations such ``Star Search'' and even Ted Mack's ``Original Amateur Hour,'' finalists on ``American Idol'' who are put in front of screaming, sign-wielding fans do expect something in return for the exposure.

But will they get it - or be forgotten by this time next year?

``To me, 'American Idol' is the end point of Andy Warhol's statement that in the future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes,'' says USC professor Jonathan Taplin, former tour manager for Bob Dylan and producer of The Band's ``Last Waltz'' documentary. ``It's hard to become a rock 'n' roll star or a pop music star, and most people will fail.''

So far, the tour has has earned an estimated $466,000 since kicking off on July 12, according to concert-tracking Pollstar, making it the fifth- highest-grossing tour of the last three months.

``That's very good business,'' says Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni. ``Bruce Springsteen is grossing a similar amount of money, but he's playing smaller places at twice the ticket price.''

Despite the success of the tour, Taplin believes all the exposure ``American Idol'' provides isn't enough to jump-start careers for most contestants.

``Ninety percent of the people on 'Survivor' you never hear from again either so, you know, Andy Warhol was right,'' Taplin says. ``They had their 15 minutes of fame - and that was it.''

Carrie Underwood shudders at the thought.

``I don't want to say that was my 15 minutes, because I hope it's not over, but I know it happens every year,'' says the 22-year-old Oklahoma native who up until auditioning and winning the fourth installment of ``American Idol'' was shoveling dog poop at a veterinary clinic.

Fortunately for her, given previous first and second-place winners' track records, she has nothing to worry about.

Remember Kelly Clarkson? Of course you do.

Three years after she beat curly-haired heartthrob Justin Guarini, her co-star in the box-office flop ``From Justin to Kelly,'' she's become a bona fide pop star in her own right.

Clarkson earned a Grammy nomination for best female pop vocal performance for her single ``Miss Independent'' from ``Thankful,'' her 2003 debut. And last year she released ``Breakaway,'' an album that has sold more than 5 million copies and continues to chart on the strength of its singles - ``Breakaway,'' ``Behind These Hazel Eyes'' and ``Since U Been Gone.''

There have been other success stories, too. Ruben Studdard and Fantasia Barrino have also made their mark on the pop music world.

Studdard, whom Gladys Knight dubbed ``Velvet Teddy Bear,'' earned a Grammy nomination for best r&b vocal performance for the single ``Superstar,'' from his 2003 ``Soulful'' debut. He's currently at work on his third album for J Records.

Fantasia has been busy guest-starring on albums for the likes of Missy Elliott and racking up nominations, including four nods at next month's Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards.

``American Idol'' has often been described as an entertainment boot camp. It teaches contestants about projecting their voice and personality - something 26-year-old LaToya London has no shortage of most of the time.

The third-season finalist who's about to release her debut, ``Love & Life,'' on the Peak label - a division of Concord - was recently tapped as a special correspondent for E! Entertainment.

She also journeyed to Alabama for ``American Idol'' to interview supporters of Bo Bice during last season's nail-biting finale.

And though he didn't walk away a winner, Clay Aiken, who lost out to Studdard, has become an ``Idol'' nonetheless.

His every studio effort has debuted at the top of Billboard charts, including 2003's ``Measure of a Man,'' his first CD. Last year he joined Clarkson for a tour that Bongiovanni describes as having done ``very good business.''

But for every Aiken, there are far more Idols who have been spit out by a fickle public.

Guarini was dropped from RCA after ``From Justin to Kelly'' flopped and his debut CD sold 134,000 copies in the U.S. At the moment, he is working on a new record and hoping for a new label.

``The biggest mistake that an 'American Idol' contestant who doesn't win can make is thinking that once the show is over, it's going to be handed to them,'' says 27-year-old Kimberley Locke, the second runner-up to Aiken. ``It wasn't handed to me.''

Locke was halfway through the summer tour - the highest grossing Idols Live! at $16 million - when she learned that ``American Idol'' had no intention of offering her a record deal.

That same day, she contacted her attorney.

``He said, 'I'm going to make a dozen phone calls tomorrow, and we'll see who calls us back,' '' she says. ``Well, Curb, with who I'm signed to now, was the first to call and send over paperwork. They were interested.''

Locke is currently at work on her follow-up to 2004's ``One Love,'' and recently signed with Ford Models, which has led to a campaign for the plus-size clothing retailer Lane Bryant.

As she puts it, ``You have to put your nose to the grindstone and keep working just as hard as you did when you were on the show, because it doesn't stop there - it's really just the beginning.''

And she has other advice.

``Don't forget, there's a new batch of Idols coming next year.''

Sandra Barrera, [phone]

sandra.barrera(at)dailynews.com

POP-TARTS PRESENTS AMERICAN IDOLS LIVE

Where: Staples Center, 865 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles.

When: 7 tonight.

Tickets: $38.50 and $48.50. [phone]; www.ticketmaster.com.

Carrie and Bo staying the course

Give them fame and cushy record contracts, but don't expect ``American Idol'' Carrie Underwood and runner-up Bo Bice to start singing a different tune.

It ain't going to happen.

``I wondered how people would take me being a country music singer,'' says Underwood, who is signed to 19 Recordings/Arista Records.

``I thought about deviating from that and singing other things, but then I thought, 'Well, if I don't win ... this is what I want to do after the show, so it doesn't really make sense for me to try to be something that I'm not.' ''

Both Underwood and Bice have not had much luck with their versions of ``Inside Your Heaven.''

Despite a No. 1 debut for Underwood, her single has slipped down the charts.

Bice's version hasn't even made a dent.

But the 29-year-old RCA artist says he's OK with it.

``If I fade away and nobody ever thinks about me again, that's cool, I'm still going to be sittin' and whittlin' away at my music,'' he says. ``I mean, I've been doing this for my entire life, and I'm not going to stop just because people quit buying my albums. I'll just keeping putting my albums out and go back to selling them out of the trunk of my car.''

- S.B.

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) `IDOL' fame

Winners like Carrie Underwood worry you won't love them tomorrow

(2) Third-season ``Idol'' winner Fantasia Barrino's debut CD, ``Free Yourself,'' went platinum.

(3) While not a winner, Clay Aiken is one of the most successful ``Idol'' alumni and a regular at the top of the charts.

(4) Kelly Clarkson, winner of the first ``American Idol'' season, didn't let the ``From Justin to Kelly'' movie derail a career that has seen her release two multiplatinum albums and earn a Grammy nomination.

(5) - KIMBERLY LOCKE

who's busy recording her second album

(6) BO BICE, CARRIE UNDERWOOD

Box:

Carrie and Bo staying the course (see text)