Constantine Maroulis
News

Past American Idol finalists Elliott Yamin and Constantine Maroulis will be sharing the stage along with singer-songwriter Jon McLaughlin for a concert in an episode of The Bold And The Beautiful airing tomorrow.

Maroulis, who plays record promoter Constantine Parros on the daytime drama, will be joined by fellow cast members Mackenzie Mauzy and Kyle Lowder.

The concert is tied in to an online contest called "Boldface Challenge" which ran in the first few weeks of August.

Viewers were invited to choose between duets by Maroulis' character with his young protegee, Phoebe Forrester (Mauzy) and Phoebe's duet with her former boyfriend, Rick Forrester (Lowder). Videos of each duet were posted on the site of Parros' fictional record company, Boldface Records.

Viewers, who voted by text or online, were automatically entered into a sweepstakes for various prizes and a grand prize of a trip for two to Los Angeles to visit the site of the popular daytime drama.

The grand prize winner of the sweepstakes will be announced on Friday's episode, while the duet challenge winner will be announced on Monday.

During the concert, Yamin will perform his single, "Wait For You," McLaughlin will perform "Beautiful Disaster" and Maroulis will present his rendition of Celine Dion's hit "Fading Into You."

Here's a subpar review of the first album from Constantine Maroulis. The apparent message from The Chicago Tribune?

Perhaps he ought to stick to The Bold and The Beautiful.

Backstory: Remember Constantine Maroulis? Finished in sixth place two years ago on American Idol? Did the rock thing, à la Bo Bice and Chris Daughtry? Greek? Off-Broadway actor/singer?

Why you should care: Because if runner-ups like Daughtry and Clay Aiken can put out better (and better-selling records) than some of the actual Idol winners, that means there's room for everyone. And Maroulis, while not possessing the most distinctive voice in the world, pleasantly emulates Rob Thomas, John Mayer and the late great Brad Delp (Boston), among others.

Verdict: And yet, these songs… Wow. Lead single "Everybody Loves" mixes rock guitar, some upbeat piano, soulful back-up vocals and enough "nah nah nahs" to worm its way into your head. Sadly, lyrics like "you can drink champagne with the president of Spain / or be a poor man walking in the rain" destroy the album's one chance of creating a decent pop single.

Elsewhere, Maroulis channels mall metal circa 1989 ("Child of the Revolution"), latter-day Santana ("Girl Like You") and, uh, a petulant teen girl ("Favorite T-shirt," where Maroulis demands his favorite outerwear back).

X-Factor: If you have problems finding the record, send your complaints to Maroulis' record company, Sixth Place Records. He owns it.

Thanks to Entertainment Weekly for this interview with soap opera star and former American Idol, Costantine Maroulis...

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What happened to the deal with ABC?
CONSTANTINE MAROULIS: We had a show we were developing, but it didn't work out. When Kelsey Grammar calls you up, you put a year of your time into developing something because he's a legend. You have to pursue these opportunities, see what they are, and nurture them. You have to take time to see if there's something there.

Tell us about your character on The Bold and the Beautiful.
I play Constantine Parros, an international rock star, which, of course, I'm not. He's a really cool, hardworking guy who's producing records and looking for artists. He becomes fascinated with Phoebe Forrester [played by MacKenzie Mauzy]. She's the heiress to Forrester fashion house, which is a big f---ing deal. The whole show is based around this family, and she's really beautiful and can sing incredibly well. I see this YouTube-equivalent [video] of her and I say, ''Look at all the buzz this girl's getting, look at all the views, she's got the paparazzi after her...'' She's a good girl, though. She's like Hilary Duff but with Paris Hilton exposure. So I see potential and I want to produce her record. And, of course, a romance ensues.

You perform your songs on the show as well; do you give her the staple Constantine stare?
Definitely. It might have been written into one of the stage directions. The script said, ''Constantine gives her 'the look.''' I laughed out loud, of course. I take my work really seriously, but that's funny s--- when you see that written into the script.

Certainly it must be easier to gaze toward Phoebe than Simon Cowell.
Yeah, a little bit. Although he might have liked it. He did call me ''smoldering.''

You went from Elimidate to American Idol to The Bold and the Beautiful — some may say there's some cheese there.
I say it's cool to be cheesy. But also look at Boston Conservatory, [the] Rent [tour], record entrepreneur, classical actor. You can see all sides of it. As long as they're talking about me, that's all that matters.

Why did you choose to self-release your album?
It just ended up becoming the best situation for me. Anytime you can have control of an album's direction, that's a good thing. I own this record. I'm the label — I lay out all the money for the studio, the musicians, the producers, rights and clearances to songs.... There's a huge advantage and a much bigger profit margin for units sold if you can do it like this.

Care to predict how it will do?
If we can sell enough to continue making records and stay on the road long enough to get more people into the music...that's the goal. Numbers are irrelevant now. It's about who your target audience is and trying to move them. I'm realistic. I know I'm not going to be like the major artists out there. I think that's so silly when artists talk about [how much they'll sell].... I've taken the time to consciously build a career. I wanted to do Broadway, I wanted to do soap operas, I wanted to start my own label, I wanted to host and write. There were all these ''I wannas'' and I got to do them all.

Would you say you're proof that you don't have to win to have a successful career?
I'm just a hardworking kid from New York. I'm about perseverance. You pound away, you keep working and things will happen. If you're not fortunate enough to be Carrie Underwood, you have to f---ing bust your ass. That's it. I've stayed out there without being too much out there. I've quietly done good work. I plan on sticking around for a long time as a result of it. Then one day, I'll move to Greece and retire with my 10 children.

Let's move away from recent American Idols on tour, such as Sanjaya Malakar, for a moment.

USA Today recently reviewed the upcoming album by Constantine Maroulis. Here is its take:

Good things about it: Constantine's voice, which stays mostly free of Broadway boom-the-room excess and displays appealing grit. On one song (I Thought It Was Something) he sounds quite similar to Julian Casablancas from The Strokes, not what you might expect.

Also, some of the songs are pretty impressive, notably Right to My Head, which is a little like Bowie/Mott the Hoople's All the Young Dudes, and Child of the Revolution, which echoes the similarly titled T. Rex song (Children of the Revolution) in more than name. (It's not just '70s songs he's good at evoking; the '80s-ish rocker Heaven Help the Lonely could be the album's best track.)

What's not so good: other songs, which range from overblown (ballads Sister Sister and So Long, the end of Midnight Radio) to simply dull (Everybody Loves) to downright awful (Several Thousand).

Ruben Studdard isn't the only one getting ready for a new album.

Constantine Maroulis, the sixth place finisher on the fourth season of American Idol, has been biding his time. The typical route for Idol finalists is to record and release an album as soon after the show as humanly possible, allowing them to ride the wave of fame that the show bestowed unto them.

But this often leads to a rushed and mediocre release; Constantine had other ideas. Instead, the Brooklyn-born rocker of Greek descent has taken a couple of years to find his voice and craft an album of which he can truly be proud.

The album entitled “Constantine” will hit stores on August 7. The first single from the album, "Everybody Loves" is currently available for download on iTunes.

After finishing in sixth place on American Idol in 2005, Maroulis, known for his rocker sensibilities and brooding style, took some time to do side projects before recording his debut album.

In the summer of 2006, he joined the cast of the Broadway musical version of “The Wedding Singer,” playing the role of Sammy. Earlier this year, Constantine joined the cast of the off-Broadway musical “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” for an exclusive six-week run.

On May 15, Constantine began his day time acting career when he signed a thirteen week contract to appear on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, on which he plays Constantine Perros, a singer/rock star and record producer.

For those unaware, there has been recent controversy around Miss USA, Tara Conner. She was ordered to enter rehab in order to deal with a drug and alcohol problem.

We bring this up because one of the friends Conner made during her many nights out appears to have been Constantine Maroulis.

According to reports - and the attached picture of the two at a party - Maroulis and Conner spent a night on the town at a NYC pool hall last October, partying with pop singer Ryan Cabrera and Six Degrees star Jay Hernandez.

The evening was even caught on video camera by Maroulis, who looks straight into the lens and admits that they "have to get to some partying. You know how it is."

Sounds to us like Miss USA had some American Idol worshipping of her own going on for awhile!

It's no secret that America's most popular show has spawned its share of successes... and those who have faded from the limelight pretty quickly.

A number of contestants, however, have surfaced on Broadway in recent months. How are our American Idol favorites doing? EW takes a look:

CONSTANTINE MAROULIS
SHOW: The Wedding Singer
GRADE: B+

Despite having won over millions from the beginning, Constantine Maroulis did not enter The Wedding Singer with much optimism from theater insiders.

But in this bizarre college-theater production masquerading as a big-ticket Broadway show, Constantine stood out as one of the top three things on stage. (He comes in right behind the woman playing Robbie's psycho ex-girlfriend Linda and the plane on a stick that appears in Act 2.)

Turns out everyone's favorite Greek rocker spent a summer as an apprentice at the Williamstown Theater Festival, and actually has a degree in musical theater from the Boston Conservatory of Music. A degree!

So it shouldn't be surprised to discover that, in his role as Robbie's bass player and best friend Sammy, Maroulis exhibits terrific comedic timing, not-terribly-awkward dance skills, and a New Jersey accent that's both convincing and consistent.

Audience members might be surprised, however, at how rarely Maroulis is the center of the show -- Sammy's sidekick status has not been elevated to compensate for the Idol vet's relative fame, and he's got but one big number, "Single," a boys'-night-out anthem in which he must concede spotlight space to chorus members.

Maroulis may have lost out to Carrie Underwood on American Idol, but the kid is a natural Broadway baby and he looks like he's having fun... imagine what he could do when not forced to sport a mullet.

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Blow-dryer in one hand and pomade in the other, former American Idol star Constantine Maroulis tries to fix his hair, which is in a mass of tangled curls after being pinned under a brown mullet wig for his Friday-night performance of The Wedding Singer on Broadway.

The room had two mirrors, a fridge, a sink, two bottles of champagne, a six-inch stack of unanswered fan mail, a gift basket with Greek flags sticking out of it (one of Maroulis' nicknames is Greek Boy), and about a dozen empty vases that had been filled with roses and flowers, according to the Village Voice.

The costume rack for Maroulis, best known to Broadway audiences and most Americans as the fifth runner-up in the fourth season of American Idol, was stuffed with '80s outfits, including one sparkly white glove and a red jacket reminiscent of Michael Jackson in "Thriller."

The names on the rack didn't identify the clothes as belonging to Maroulis; instead the label read "Matthew Saldivar," an actor who has left the show to make room for Maroulis.

After the 31-year-old rocker finished fixing his hair, even fluffing the hairs on his chest a bit with the blow-dryer, Constantine Maroulis sprays a coat of deodorant all over his torso, put on a purple T-shirt with an indescribable graphic design, yanked on a pair of embroidered cowboy boots, and put his arms through the sleeves of a slick black leather jacket.

As he prepared to leave, he looked one more time at the only photo that decorated his otherwise nondescript dressing room -- of Maroulis standing with his arm around a pudgy middle-aged woman, the fan who sent the photo to him. He smiled a little as he looked at it, as though it reminded him of those who found pleasure in standing next to a real live star.

Tonight a woman Maroulis had met recently -- at one of the rock performances at bars and clubs that now fill his schedule -- and who had been writing to him on his MySpace page was going to meet him backstage. He seemed interested to get to know her because they shared New Jersey roots.

"She's, like, a very sexy Jersey girl," he said to a visitor as he prepared to reacquaint himself with her in a few minutes.

Maroulis is always the last cast member to leave the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on West 45th Street to sign autographs for fans. But he at last finished with his post-show primping and was ready to face his adoring public. At the bottom of the stairs he paused, took a deep breath, and said, "All right, let's go for it."

He then stepped out onto the sidewalk and stopped for a moment as about 100 women and girls screamed his name and pushed to get closer to the metal barricade. Women held their playbills out to be signed and snapped his photo.

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Note to those that get kicked off American Idol 6 in a few months: Don't worry. Broadway may be in your future.

Past contestants that couldn't quite pull a Kelly Clarkson or Taylor Hicks have proven as much.

For example, Constantine Maroulis is in the Broadway production of "The Wedding Singer," while Diana DeGarmo (pictured) has just rejoined "Hairspray." Josh Strickland stars in "Tarzan" and Frenchie Davis is in "Rent."

Maroulis said he welcomes the challenge and is just trying to keep up right now with the hectic schedule.

Meanwhile, DeGarmo said she has American Idol fans coming to see her, while "Hairspray" fans who never saw her on TV become familiar with her talents. She also likes having a regular paycheck and the time to hit the studio to record her own music.

Casting agent Bernard Telsey says he requires his staff to watch the FOX sensation.

"We basically root for the losers," he said. "That means we can put them in a Broadway show."

Becoming an American Idol can lead to sold out stadiums across the U.S., millions in royalties and even Grammy Awards. Or the state fair, or the local food festival.

Yes, for every Kelly Clarkson or Clay Aiken album gobbled up by eager fans, there are those of dozens of releases by the show's contestants that do not fare quite as well.

Former Idol non-winner Constantine Maroulis may have an acting career to fall back on, but his once buzz-generating music career may be hitting the skids.

While he is slated to co-host a new MTV show and has scored a role in the Broadway musical "The Wedding Singer," Maroulis is rocking out... in local food festivals.

Or at least once of them. The Brooklyn, N.Y., native and fourth season American Idol finalist is scheduled to be at the Greek Food Festival of Dallas at the end of the month. For $10, hungry fans get entrance to the festival, lunch and Constantine's performance.

Hey, whatever works. He is of Greek descent, at least. We think.