Since the release of their self-titled debut album in 2006, Built for the Sea's oceanic indie rock has earned them spots at the SXSW Music Festival (2007, 2008), San Francisco's Noise Pop Festival (2007, 2008), and the Live105 studios.  The Bay Area quintet creates a sound that Live105 Music Director Aaron Axelsen has praised as "very mesmerizing, very hypnotic".

At the center of this hypnotic sound is band leader Lia Rose.  But music first came to Lia in an instrument that seems far removed from pop music -- wind chimes. As a child, her family owned a wind chime business in Southern California and she was always surrounded by music. But as she grew up, she gravitated towards the sciences and at age 18 she moved to the Bay Area to study at UC Berkeley.  She eventually returned to her musical roots in 2005 when she stepped into the local limelight as a part of San Francisco's dreampop band, Minipop.

For the first couple of Minipop shows, Eric Kuhn was on drums; that is how these two met. Years would go by before they would play music together again.  Meanwhile, Built for the Sea was beginning to slowly form and there were a few early underground shows with a rotating group of musicians. Lia and Jonny met at the first ever (impromptu) Built for the Sea show, which was at a small cafe that Jonny worked at in the North Bay. He soon got involved with the band, helping out for a few shows and it quickly became obvious that they'd be playing music together for the long run. Jonny pulled his good friend and former band mate Daniel McKenzie (The Rum Diary) out to an early Built for the Sea show and he shortly thereafter joined the band…

Fast forward a few years: Lia reunites with Eric on the streets of Santa Cruz where she says, "I randomly came across my old friend playing the buckets --and pots and pans and street signs-- on the corner with a few others. Eric was clearly the orchestrator of the group and after that meeting, sprouts of us playing music together again were firmly planted." Eric joined the band in the summer of 2007 and by that fall, Built for the Sea would complete its lineup by adding Michael Fesckes on cello.

In 2008, Built for the Sea self-released an EP titled, Mise en Scéne and they are currently in pre-production for their next full length album.