This Guy Runs an Internet Radio Station for Cats

Icarus with a gun. All photos via Nohl Rosen.

Will our collective obsession with cats ever end? We dress them up, give them Facebook profiles, bake them birthday cakes, put them on game shows, have serious conversations with them, watch them billions of times on the internet, and open up cafes for them. One man from Phoenix, Arizona, has been happily frolicking in this cat madness for 13 years by running the world’s only radio and TV station for cats, by cats: Cat Galaxy.

Nohl Rosen estimates that 5 million listeners have tuned into Cat Galaxy since it started on April 21st, 2001, most of which are from the US, Canada, and Japan. The basic idea is this: cats enjoy music and TV just like we do, but they have a particular taste that humans can’t fully understand. So, Nohl gets his cats to ‘choose’ what is broadcast to Cat Galaxy’s fluffy viewership around the globe. Radio content plays 24/7 with weekly shows like Morning Meows, Meow Mixing Monday, Tuesday Night Cat Club, Wednesday Night Cat Attack, Thursday Night Purr Party, and the Friday Night Feline Frenzy. When Nohl isn’t running his station, he goes to gun rallies and dresses up as a superhero that warns cats about bad humans—more on that later. I reached out to Nohl over the phone to talk about his radio station, his cats, guns, and metaphysical awareness.

VICE: Hey Nohl. So, how did Cat Galaxy start, and where did your inspiration come from?
Nohl Rosen: It all started with my cat, Isis. She was the driving force for the radio station. I mean, she was the whole inspiration for it. I remember one day she was meowing pretty insistently and she didn’t want food, she didn’t want water, and she didn’t want to play. I just kinda clued in and said, OK, I think I know what you’re asking me for! There was a CD that was sitting on the table—I think it was a funk mix CD. The music started playing, she immediately lay down and relaxed, and Cat Galaxy was born. She wanted to hear the music and I just kinda—I don't know if you want to call it psychicly connected to her—but it seemed like I knew what she was asking me for. And of course not long after that happened, on April 21 2001, we went on the air and Cat Galaxy has been playing ever since.

You say the cats choose the music, what does that mean exactly?
Actually, the way it’s done is we play songs and they choose what gets aired. If they don’t like it, it doesn’t get aired. A lot of music does get aired, but some doesn’t. It’s just our taste. If you don’t like something, you’re going speak your own mind. Cats do it in their own way. We’ve had several artists looking for airplay and when the cats don’t like something, they leave the room, so you know that they’re really not interested. I do intend on adopting another cat again so we’re gonna have more cats on this team.

One of Nohl's cats, Icarus, on air.

How would you compare your cats’ DJ styles as they’ve progressed over the years?
Well, it started with Isis in 2001, then Jade joined 2002, and Icarus joined in 2004. Jade’s management style was relaxing, but very vocal. If there was something out of whack, she made her meows and her voice heard. She was a fan of Outkast, and of course I could never figure out—are you familiar with the band?

Yeah.
I could never figure out why she was into them I just kinda said OK. She loves smooth jazz, too. She was a smooth jazz cat. Isis, who was the manager, owner, and creator of the station, loved Ozzy Osbourne. She liked rock, smooth jazz, and funk. A lot of the things you hear on our station have to do with Isis. Her style was much different. Icarus’s management style, out of all the cats, has been the most vocal. A lot of times you will hear his voice when I’m on the air. But there are times, however, that you won’t. I think it just depends on the mood he’s in. Ever since Isis passed away, Icarus has been a take-charge kinda cat. Icarus will jump up in front of my screen to say, “Look, I’m here. Pay attention to me.”

What kind of feedback has Cat Galaxy gotten?
We’ve heard from listeners from Japan where someone wrote to me telling me they had this unruly kitten who was not so unruly anymore thanks to Cat Galaxy. Music really can be a soothing thing for animals, just like it is for humans. They enjoy music just like we do it. They may not respond in the same way, but it’s in their own way. If you open up your heart and your mind, you’re going to learn something from them. I run into so many humans who are so closed minded, when they hear about our radio station they say, “Are you joking?” Their first reaction is they don’t know what to think, and then when they check out the station they say, “You know what? My cat loves this music, but gosh darn it—It’s appealing to me too!” That’s the side effect thing. No station has ever decided we are going to target cats as our audience. We did. And it’s been successful.

So, what is it about the content on Cat Galaxy that makes it specifically for cats?
I think they enjoy it just like we do. If you’re connected with your cat, you can pretty much understand what they’re telling you. It goes beyond words. There are sometimes when I wonder what Icarus likes about a particular show. He’ll follow and track things that have a lot of motion. Other times its just mindless entertainment and a great opportunity for them to spend time with their human. You’d probably have to ask Icarus yourself. I think he enjoys the action and likes to feel stuff too. It’s about energy, too. I’m a metaphysical person and I understand things at a deeper level. That’s how I’m able to understand what they’re feeling.

Isis on the mic.

Describe the Cat Galaxy Internet TV station and how that got started.
One of the inspirations was sitting with my cats and watching Stargate SG1_, _Boston Legal and Ultraman Max and getting a feel for what they liked and didn’t like. We had a show called In the Cat’s Eyes, where we talk about cats. One of the first shows we had was called Catnip, which was our version of Survivor. Basically, the last cat in the cat tree won some meaningful prize. The viewers and listeners would vote on which cat they wanted to stay. In hindsight, nobody cares about that anymore. One of the shows we want to do is a reality show where we go into a cat rescue and show the reality of what they go through. Another show we did was on spay and neuter clinics.

Tell me about your gun channel and how it relates to cats.
We’re still in the beginning stages, but we will have shows that are going to deal with guns through our internet TV for cats. If you want to reach people you have to grab them in a unique way. When you start arguing about guns, you’re either preaching to the choir or they don’t want to hear it. But when you put cats into the mix then you might have some people that are more apt to listen. They might not agree with you, but animals seem to be the one thing that people seem to agree on.

I also started a group called Cats For The Second that stands up for the second amendment. The second amendment of the constitution gives us the right to keep and bear arms. I’m a second amendment advocate. So I decided to add a little cat twist to it, because I’m a cat lover! And so I started _Cats for the Second,_ a show that stands up for second amendment rights. Of course, the pictures that you see are, well, cats posing with guns. It’s a unique approach to the second amendment that hasn’t really been done before. Well, there are some pictures that I’ve seen online of cats with weaponry and firearms, so it’s not completely new, on second thought.

Isis trying to take a nap.

Tell me a bit about your other projects.
Well, of course, there’s Cosplay. I’m a Cosplayer, which is costume play. You know how you see people dress up as superheroes when they go to Comic Con or they dress up as their favourite characters?

Yeah.
Well We’ve got our own superhero that I've developed over here called Calico. He's going to appear on the Breaking News Journal channel. Calico is very human looking and he’s a superhero that saves cats from bad humans. I dressed up as Calico last month at a second amendment rally, and I will make it known that one of my guns there was real. When you go to a second amendment rally, you gotta put your money where your mouth it. Of course, second amendment rallies are great because everybody is armed!

Nohl, on the right, dressed as his dreamed-up superhero Calico at a Second Amendment rally in January. Calico protects cats from bad humans.

Right, so your life really evolves around cats.
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve really strayed from that. Let’s just say that the stuff that people are going to be seeing [on the Cat Galaxy channel] and cats are going to be seeing—because our audience geared toward cats, humans are just a side effect—is really cool, but Icarus has sworn me to secrecy on a lot of it so I’ve had to bite my tongue about everything that the viewer is going to be seeing when the channel hits Roku with Breaking News Journal, but it’s gonna be pretty cool.

Any final thoughts?
You know what? Cats know what’s going on in our world. To say otherwise would be a very ignorant and stupid thing to say. There is other intelligent life on this planet. Only human ignorance would say otherwise. We are not the dominating force here. Cats have given me a lot of great ideas, and they keep giving them to me. They’re the managers, and I’m their servant. I couldn’t ask for better bosses than cats. If you love something, stick with it. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s stupid, that you shouldn’t do it. I have never cared. I’m gonna go for the brass ring when people tell me not to. And you know what? I have backup, and it has claws, and much better vision than we do.

Thanks, Nohl.  @keefe_stephen