Not just Idol talk

Every performer runs the risk of forever being identified by the platform that made them famous. Paul McCartney will always be more Beatle than Wings-man and lots of people couldn’t look at Don Knotts without seeing Barney Fife.

That risk doubles for alums of “American Idol,” Fox’s gargantuan entertainment machine. The ratings smash introduces, grooms and critiques superstar wannabes for weeks on end before launching them onto iTunes and into record stores with the words “AI Contestant” practically tattooed on their foreheads.

And you can double that risk again for the dubiously lucky ones who get the record deal without getting the crown. How hard is it to get out from under Simon Cowell’s shadow if you were, say, America’s second favorite of the season?

“I don’t think you can ever escape it,” says Blake Lewis, the season 6 runner-up, who performs at the Gravity Lounge this Monday at 7:30. “Even Kelly Clarkson will always have it.”

And she won.

Lewis, who says he never saw the show before auditioning for it, is quick to add how grateful he is for all the doors “Idol” has opened for him.

“It was an amazing experience,” he gushed in a phone interview.

Born to Dallas and Dinah Lewis, the 27-year-old Redmond, Wash., native become the first “Idol” contestant from the Northwest to get as far as the finals before falling to Jordin Sparks last year. But his debut album, “Audio Day Dream,” is the culmination of work and influences that predate Lewis’s interaction with Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul by years.

It’s “all over the place,” Lewis said of the aptly acronymed “A.D.D.”

The “electo-funk-soul-pop” LP features song titles like “Hate 2 Love Her,” “Break Anotha,” “She’s Makin’ Me Lose It” and “End of the World.” The tracks therein alternate between bitter disillusion and smirking seduction with lyrics on the “switch it like a punk / wanna bump bump? / then you’re looking dumped” side of the spectrum.

“I was in a relationship … and uh, this album is like letting go,” Lewis said of the disk, which debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard charts. “Music is release.”

In this instance, though, music is chewable, dance-mix-ready release.

If all this sounds like Justin Timberlake lite, Blake Lewis has an ace up his sleeve: He took Gypsy Rose Lee’s advice and got himself a gimmick. Early on in his “Idol” run, audiences were introduced to his talent for beatboxing, a well he’s not shy about dipping into as needed.

“I make weird noises with my mouth,” he said with a laugh.

And his follow-up effort promises to be a horse of a different, deeper color.

“I have more time to write differently,” Lewis said of his as-yet-untitled “Massive Attack meets Zero 7” sophomore album. “I have a song about drug abuse. I have a song about a soldier writing George Bush asking when he’ll come home.”

Edgy stuff for a guy who got his break singing Jon Bon Jovi on live TV.

“It’s more of a contact sport,” he said.

And what if people can’t forget that Bon Jovi cover?

“ ‘American Idol’s not a place, it’s a show,” Lewis said. “I’m not from ‘American Idol.’

“I’m Blake from Washington.”