Steve Bardwil Trades the Boardroom for the Bandstand | The Sharp Notes Interview

The Songwriter Leaves Disney to Pursue a Lifelong Passion for Music

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After decades navigating the high-stakes world of Hollywood as Chief Counsel for Walt Disney Studios, Steve Bardwil has traded legal briefs for guitar riffs. His recent leap into full-time musicianship culminates in the release of Nothing But Time, a deeply personal and collaboratively rich album produced by the legendary Joe Chiccarelli. What began as a lifelong side-passion has now become the central focus of a second act that blends Bardwil’s storytelling instincts with a joyful, rootsy rock sensibility.

In this candid conversation, Bardwil discusses the leap from boardrooms to bandstands, detailing his journey from advising Marvel and Pixar to collaborating with veteran session players and building a band with longtime friends. With his creative compass set toward optimism and connection, Bardwil shares how his music avoids melancholia in favor of inspiration; crafting songs that uplift without preaching. He also opens up about the intensive, detail-driven studio process with Chiccarelli, where no snare drum or tempo was left unexamined.

The result is an album that sounds both timeless and contemporary, echoing Bardwil’s deep respect for rock traditions while embracing modern studio craftsmanship. From rehearsal rooms to legendary stages like the Troubadour, Bardwil and his band are now delivering the kind of heartfelt performances that only come from a life rich with experience — and a clear-eyed commitment to starting fresh.

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Evan Toth: Hey, congratulations on your new album called Nothing But Time, the Steve Barwil Band. Congrats.

Steve Bardwill: Thank you.

ezt: You're very welcome. Tell me about the title. Tell me about the journey, a little bit about the journey leading up to this release. Of course, you have a bit of a background in the entertainment industry, which I'd like to talk to you about a little bit. But tell me about putting out this album and connecting, of course, with Joe Ciccarelli as your producer.

sb: Well, I wrote these songs and I wanted to make an album and I was asking around people I knew because I wanted to get a really good producer because I thought that would be, that's like an important thing to do if you want to make a great record. And got the name of Joe Ciccarelli, called him, got his answering machine. He texted me and said, "Joe Ciccarelli here, what do you want?"

ezt: ...a true producer.

sb: Yes! So texting back I said, "I'm a singer songwriter and want to make an album and I'd like to talk to you about producing it." And you know, I ended up sending him the demos and he was actually in the South of France at the time making a record with Morrissey. And he said, well, when I get back, let's have breakfast. And we did and we talked about what I thought I wanted to get out of the album. And he had heard the demos and gave me some of his ideas. And he was great: we rehearsed for 10 days, I played with the guys in my band for like 15 years, we're all really good friends, they're really great musicians. And we worked up the songs and thought we had them pretty well done. But then we rehearsed with Joe for 10 days and Joe just kind of took us to another level and with his ideas and changing tempos and keys and things like that. And we recorded it at East West Studios, which is, you know, a great studios that actually Joe has is his own little producing studio at East West upstairs. And the album came out, of course, sequencing the songs is always kind of a challenge. So Joe and I did that together and we were trying to think of what one of the songs on the album is called "Nothing But Time". And that just kind of seemed like a good title for the album as well.

ezt: That could have been a good title for the album. So had you ever worked with a producer like Joe before who it sounds like really deconstructed what you were doing and really got got down and dirty. Have you ever had anyone kind of come into your musical scene in that way before?

sb: No, this is the first time. And, you know, Joe and I become pretty good friends through this process. I love the guy. He's like you said, he's down and dirty. I mean, literally he was, you know, he'd be in the control room and we'd be playing a song and he'd come out and say, hey, Vince, I think we got to change this snare drum, and he had a trunk full of drums in the studio and he pulled one out. I was thinking, God, what's the difference? A snare drum is a snare drum. But, Joe has a great ear and he gets on his hands and knees and does stuff himself. He doesn't tell like the assistant engineer to go do something. He's the real deal.

ezt: So why don't you catch up our audience a little bit about how you said, you've got this group of folks that you've been playing with. You've performed with a lot of really interesting people on stage. And you also have, which is interesting to me, you've got had this kind of dual life as a chief counsel for Disney films. And so you had this music songwriter career and of course, this career as an attorney. So where did those two paths diverge? Maybe you could just catch people up on on the the brief story of your musical life.

sb: Yeah, well, obviously, if I was chief counsel, that means I'm a lawyer. So I like to say I'm a recovering lawyer now!

ezt: Recovering attorney. Yeah, recovering lawyer.

sb: And I worked at Disney for a very long time. I started as a production lawyer and got made eventually vice president of legal affairs and then senior vice president, executive vice president. And then finally, in the last, I guess, 10 years, I was chief counsel, overseeing the legal work for Marvel, Pixar, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Searchlight, Lucasfilm, Disney Animation, the live stage group in New York, the music group, the distribution group and the streaming services!

So, you know, a lot of it was a stressful job. And I had this band that I played with, I guess the most recent thing we did before we made the album was we did a show with Lyle Lovett at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills. But I could never really promote any of my music really or go out and publicly try and be a singer songwriter because I was at Disney. And so I decided if I'm going to do this, I've got to leave Disney, which was difficult. I still love the people. I still see a lot of the people that I work with, keep in contact with them. But music is kind of, something that I guess is part of my soul and felt if I didn't do it, I'd regret it.

ezt: So you couldn't just walk around the office saying: "guys, I got a great song from Moana 3. This is listen, sit down and listen to this thing!"

sb: I had no credit. I had no music credit at Disney because everyone thought of me as a lawyer.

ezt: You were you were a heavy hitting lawyer over there in the offices. Well, it's interesting because people have these two lives and our passions and our work life sometimes they intertwine, which in your job, it's interesting. I'm sure you were sort of still in the entertainment industry there. There must have been a hook there for you on that side, too, as far as just the entertainment law side of it.

sb: Yeah, that's true. And it's funny, it's interesting. I'm still in touch with some of the people that I work with, Alan Bergman, who's the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, he's come out. We had a record listening party in East West and he came and Alan Braverman, another guy who worked there and a number of people. And when they heard the music, they couldn't believe it. So it was kind of funny.

ezt: They're like, we didn't know you did all this!

sb: Yeah!

ezt: And what do you think? I've spoken to a few people that have been successful in different fields and music being one of them. How did you feel that music impacted your professional career also? What was it about you that made you unique as an attorney in this in this Disney "world" also having this also this creative musical side to you? What do you think about people like that?

sb: Because I know how important when an artist creates something, I know how important it is to them. And so part of what we do in the legal group, we did all the agreements for talent and location and when you buy scripts and stuff. And also when somebody makes a movie, there has to be legal clearance. So a lawyer has to look at the film and the script and you've got to make sure you're not defaming somebody or some product is not being used improperly or some art isn't depicted in the background without permission. You've got to make sure you're not violating anyone's intellectual property rights.

And if an artist really wanted something, I think I always tried to figure out a way to get them what they needed creatively, because I knew as an artist that that's important to them while at the same time, reducing the risk to Disney of a claim or a legal problem. There was usually kind of a way to to do it. I guess I use my legal creativity to think of solutions. I would say, I can't think of an example offhand, it's been so long, kind of put all that out of my mind when I got into the music. But I guess to answer your question: I appreciated the creative process in a way that maybe other lawyers might not.

ezt: And what about that moment where you did say, "hey, I really want to do this music full time? I believe in this." Talk about that risk involved there, that feeling where I'm sure you were looking at your career and balancing these two things. Tell me about that balance and that decision, that process there.

sb: Well, it's weird because when you work for a company like that for such a long time, your identity is kind of wrapped up in it. I was known as, you know, Steve Bardwil, chief counsel of Walt Disney Studios. And you kind of think that's who you are. When people meet you, that's who you are and whatnot. I thought, you know, when you leave, you think about, well, you're kind of you're changing your identity, you're giving up your identity. What's that going to be like? But it didn't take long. Now I feel like I'm Steve Bardwil, a singer-songwriter and it's been three years since I left. But I look back and it almost seems like high school. That was a chapter.

ezt: A little hazy.

sb: Yeah, a little hazy. And Disney was a chapter and that's all it was. At the time when you're in it, it doesn't it seems like it's much more than that.

ezt: So tell me a little bit about the new album. Of course, we talked about the producer already. I think you really work hard to put forth some positive vibes, positive thoughts in your songs. Tell me a little bit about just the songs and your writing process and how you sort of chipped away at your catalog to decide, hey, these are the songs that belong on this new record.

sb: I do think if I'm going to be an artist and create something, I want to create something that when it goes out in the world that it has a there's some positive energy connected to it. When we play live, sometimes the first thing I say when I walk on stage is, "we're the Steve Bardwil band, we don't play sad songs." People start laughing. There's enough sadness in the world and things to kind of bum you out or take you to a place that's in the past that made you sad or down in a way.

One of the songs is called "Yesterday This, Yesterday That". The song is about: yesterday's gone and ain't coming back. So live for today and that's the way to be happy kind of thing. I also wrote that song because when I wrote it - I love the Beatles - and I love the song "Yesterday" that Paul wrote. There are all these - I don't know if they're rumors or they're true or not - that John Lennon and Paul McCartney had a little tension in the songwriting in the later years of the Beatles and I heard that John at one point didn't care for the song "Yesterday" that much. And so I kind of tried to imagine what John Lennon would write in response to Paul's song "Yesterday" where Paul's point, you know, saying yesterday, all my troubles seem so far away long for yesterday. And John Lennon would have said yesterday this, yesterday that, yesterday ain't really where it's at.

ezt: There's some quote. What is it in? "How Do You Sleep"? He says something like, "all you've done is yesterday" or there's some there's some lyric in there, too.

sb: I kind of heard that kind of thing. So that kind of gave me the idea to write that song. But yeah like I said, if I can make somebody happier, give somebody some encouragement in a way through the music. That's great.

ezt: Is there a song that in the studio you particularly had an experience with recording that was difficult? You said Joe kind of tinkered with some things. Was there something that really is much different for the listeners of the album than it was when you brought it there?

sb: I wouldn't say there's anything that's that's a lot different. In fact, I saw an interview that Joe did on it. There's going to be a promotional making of the song "Send 'Em Love". Joe likes to be as involved as he can in the process, even, you know, if somebody's writing a song that he's going to produce, he'll work with you in writing the song. But we had pretty much worked everything up, like I said, he would change the tempo. He would tell us that sometimes in between the lyrics, we were just playing without any licks or between, you know, words. And he would tell like Johnny to our guitar player to come up with something and while Steve's taking a pause here, getting a breath, play something.

Producer Joe Chiccaelli in his natural habitat. Photo by Ana Gilbert.

And we would try different things. Joe goes, "oh, I like that." Or, you know, things like that. And like I said, he changed a couple songs. We tuned everything a half step down, changed the tempos. He speeded up. He didn't really slow anything down. He speeded up a couple of songs, had us do a little play a little faster, a little more energy.

ezt: It's interesting about dropping the key down a little bit. Sometimes people try to turn it up. So you get a little more, a little more excitement. But it sounds like you turned it down in a few places.

sb: Well, he wanted to make it sound a little more interesting. And it did. There's nothing that he suggested that he wasn't right about.

ezt: And tell me about the crew you had there. You've had some people that you've been playing with for quite a while, and I guess they've become kind of trusty bandmates.

sb: Yes. I've been playing with Johnny Stachela, who plays guitar in the band, and I've been playing with him for over 15 years. Same with Vince Fossett, the drummer, and Aaron Leibowitz, our sax player. Max Butler, who plays B3 organ, Wurlitzer, and keys. He's been in the band about 10 years. And George Sugarman, our bass player, played bass on the album. COVID was spiking when we were recording the album, so we were all testing for COVID every day, and George got COVID while we were recording. So Joe brought in Sean Hurley, who's John Mayer's bass player, and Sean played bass on "Wonder of It All" and "Maybe", and he also brought in Kaveh Rastegar, who plays with John Legend, and I think he's in Jimmy Kimmel's band as well. He played on "Send 'Em Love" and "Stars". George has since dropped out of the band for personal reasons, and Frank Abraham is playing bass for us now, so he's only been playing with us a few months. Catherine Jane sings backup vocals, and Max sings backup vocals as well.

ezt: Now, you started the band really around 2014-ish, and you've been sort of building this momentum since then, and you've shared the stage with some really interesting names. You mentioned Lyle Lovett, Robert Randolph, who's a fellow New Jersey boy, Jim Messina, Eddie Money, Robbie Krieger, who I actually got to meet after a gig one time. I said hello and shook his hand. That was a really big thrill. So how did it go from you sort of starting the band in 2014 and ending up? What were the circumstances in which you sort of performed with these people?

sb: There was a venue in the LA area called the Canyon, and somebody had given the booker there a recording that we had done, and she heard it and called me and asked if we would want to play there, and we started playing there. And then from there, we just started playing different places, but the first time we played was there at Donovan Frankenreiter, actually.

Steve Bardwil and the Steve Bardwil Band. Photo by Joy Watanabe

ezt: But how did they—were you opening for them, more or less?

sb: Yeah, we opened for them.

ezt: Yeah. And then you guys would play a little bit together?

sb: Yeah, and we did a couple of—we did our own shows at a few places as well, but we didn't play that often. Maybe once a month or something like that, we'd play somewhere. And we would have—we'd rehearse once a week and have dinner and rehearse, and it was more kind of a fun thing. It was, you know, like a series—we didn't consider ourselves, you know, like pros in a way that I feel—because now I'm dedicated to that. Right. It was more of a part-time—it was a part-time thing, because my full-time thing is Disney, so this was a part-time thing. And the guys, when we first started, everybody—it was part-time for everybody, but Johnny and Aaron and Vince and Max, those guys are all, like, have, you know, become full-time while I was still at Disney. I was the last one.

ezt: Right, you were the last one. So how do you think these new—you're going to be doing some gigs and performances in support of the album. What do you think your approach is on this? How is it different than, you know, maybe those shows that you played eight years ago or so?

sb: Well, there's other bands that are going to be opening for us now, and, you know, we're going to be playing a lot longer, and we have a new album, and, you know, there's more people that know about us than knew about us before. And it's more of a full-time gig now than a part-time gig.

ezt: Right, right. And is the show on stage much different, or is that sort of—?

sb: Yeah, I'd say it's much different. The music's different. We're doing the Troubadour in L.A. on Monday, and we're going to be playing probably 15 songs. You know, we're going to—I don't know if you know—you know who Scarlett Rivera is? No. She was Bob Dylan's violin—she is Bob Dylan's violin player. She was part of the Rolling Thunder review.

ezt: Well, now that you explain it, I know exactly who she is, yeah.

sb: Yeah, she wailed in that song, "The Hurricane". Her and Bob Dylan, it was her violin and his voice were basically the two things that you

hear in the song that give it the energy.

ezt: And she's in that documentary, too. She's in those Rolling Thunder documentaries. She's all over the place.

sb: I did a charity gig a couple weeks ago, and she was there, one of the artists. And I was talking to her and told her that, you know, we were doing a show at the Troubadour, and she was saying that she and Bob did a number of shows at the Troubadour. And I think she said that the Rolling Thunder review actually did a stop and played a show at the Troubadour. And she was talking about how much she loved the Troubadour, and I said, well, you know, come join us if you want to. You're in town if you want to. And she said, oh, I'd love to do that. So she's going to join us on four or five songs. So that'll be fun.

ezt: Yeah, right. Why not? Hey, if you're in town, you want to bring your violin case, come on down.

sb: Yeah. It worked for Bob Dylan. It'll work for me.

ezt: Absolutely right. So even though you're kind of wrapping up the release of this new album, that process, have you been thinking about what your next project might be? Or is it just kind of too early to be thinking about that at this point?

sb: I've been thinking about it. And I've already talked to Joe Ciccarelli about producing our next album. I've written about 11 songs. I'm going to write four more. And we're talking about recording maybe in the fall back at EastWest Studios. One of the songs, new songs, is a song called "Scarecrow". And we're probably going to play that with Scarlett at the Troubadour because I told Joe that I thought Scarlett Rivera would be great. Her violin would be great on that song. And he agreed. So it'll be fun to kind of put our toes in the water with her on Monday on that song.

ezt: Yeah, tease it a little bit and then get it warmed up. Yeah, that'll be cool. Cool, man. Well, what else? You know, where can people find out more about you and more about the project? And where should they be going?

sb: Well, we have a website, SteveBardwelBand.com. You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook. I guess those are the two best ways.

ezt: Are you planning to come to the East Coast this year?

sb: We don't have anything booked yet, but we'd like to get out there, yeah. I'm just intrigued by your album collection. How many albums do you have there?

ezt: I have about 8,000 here and they're real. It's not a fake background. I just grabbed the Pretenders. That's my, this is my just random grab here. The Pretenders, this is a Nautilus audiophile pressing of the Pretenders' second album, right?

sb: Yeah, I saw Chrissie Hynde at the Hollywood Bowl about two years ago and she was amazing.

ezt: Yeah. I've been collecting for, you know, since I was a little... Is this sealed? This is sealed!

sb: Wow.

ezt: Wow. What's the matter with me? I've played my regular pressing aside from this. I never opened this other one. Wow.

sb: Well, maybe it'll be worth it. You can keep it unopened if you already got one that's open and, you know.

ezt: Thanks for reminding me to check that out. No problem.

sb: I'm glad I could be of service. I was bummed out when, you know, all the record stores started closing and there's... to me, vinyl, it's almost like, it's almost like a ceremony, you know, pulling the album out, reading, you can read sometimes the lyrics are in there, you pull the record out. There's just a smell of it, putting it delicately handling it so you don't get fingerprints on it and putting it on a turntable; dropping the needle and hearing the little scratch. It's almost like the ceremony of drinking a glass of wine where you pop the cork and people smell the wine glass before you take a sip. To me, playing vinyl kind of has that same ceremonial attraction that something like drinking wine or whatever.

ezt: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it makes me think too about physical media, because, of course, I love my records, but I love my CDs too, which I got another a bunch of that down here and books. But it makes me think back again to your Disney connection. And, of course, you've just released this album on vinyl. You know, you must have seen a lot of that change with DVDs and CDs and go to streaming during your tenure there.

sb: VHS tape, you know, those tape cassettes.

ezt: Oh, remember that? Everybody had those Disney, the big plastic ones.

sb: Big plastic ones. And then DVDs came out when everyone thought Blu-ray. And, you know, for the studios, it was a new way to redo your library. Because it was if people already bought the tape cassettes, well now you've got to get a CD player or DVD player. And so now, even though you bought Snow White or whatever it was, now you've got to buy it again.

ezt: Right. Sure.

sb: It came out, oh, you got to buy it again. Every time there was a new format, you had to get the new format. So it was like printing money.

ezt: What was that like from a legal perspective? Was it easier to keep track of things in physical media? Or what? Something tells me it almost gets more complicated once it goes to streaming, because how do you almost keep track of it?

sb: Well, you have to rely on the streaming service to account. Right. And with streaming services, artists and publishers get less money than you did. You know, the music business has changed. Right. Nobody makes as much money as we used to with streaming than we did with physical product. Because we had our own distribution. Disney has such a large organization and worldwide distribution. We captured it from different places along the stream from wholesale to retail. With streaming, you just upload it into the streaming service and you rely on them for accounting.

ezt: Who knows? Who knows what those numbers are?

sb: Yes, I mean, I certainly don't know. Who knows? And also, there's a lot more, you know, I don't know if it's true. I've heard that there's like 150,000 songs released a day upon streaming. I don't know if that's true, but.

ezt: I'm sure it's a large number, whatever it is. And how do you keep track? And who cares after a while? You know, you almost ask that question.

sb: And artists don't rely on having a piece of a physical product in music, an artist could make some decent money off that. Now I'm sure Taylor Swift making a bunch of money, but artists don't make as much money off the streaming as they used to make off the physical product. And that's why touring is really where you make money selling merch.

ezt: Well, cool, Steve. I really thank you for your time and congrats on the album and best of luck with it. And if you're playing the East Coast, let me know.

sb: I will definitely do that, Evan, and really nice meeting you.