Like all touring artists, Jerome LOL (a.k.a. Jerome Potter) has his fair share of horror stories. A newly christened solo artist who only recently placed his long-running LOL Boys project on hiatus, Potter nonetheless spoke with XLR8R about some of his sketchier experiences on the road. He shared tales of being blinded by lights at a show, having an existential crisis on stage, and dealing with the extremely awkward situation of being woefully unprepared to handle angry kids screaming requests for artists he’d never heard of at a dubstep party. But those were pretty minor compared to the nightmare Potter describes here—a particularly gnarly late-night encounter with a wild pack of Barcelona teenagers that ultimately left him bloodied up in a hotel room.

I had been told by a bunch of friends who had played Razzmatazz before to make sure that you have a handler to walk you back to the hotel room. It’s literally half a block away from the club, but one of the corners there—it’s like very, very sketchy. [The club] is kind of outside the main city of Barcelona, in this industrial area. And I was just like, “Sure, definitely. I’ll be cool, I’ll be cool.”

But the shit got really late. I was ready to go to the hotel room. So I walked outside, without a handler, and as I was walking, I felt someone reach into my pocket and take my wallet. I had my tote bag with my laptop and my phone and shit, but this kid just took my wallet. I saw him take it. I saw him walk away. So I approached him, like, “Yo, you guys just took my wallet.” And they were young kids, like maybe 16. And then it’s a blur from there. Basically, what happened was—well, one guy was like, “No, I didn’t take your wallet.” There was literally no cash in it. I’ve heard stories about kids who go to the show to check out who the DJs are and follow them. They probably thought I got paid in cash and that’s why they followed me outside of the club and stole my wallet. So I told them it’s stupid to take my wallet because there’s nothing in it besides American credit cards that I can cancel and my ID. I don’t know why they didn’t try to steal my laptop. It would have been a cooler thing to steal than my wallet.

Then they got confrontational. One of them pushed me. One of the other kids tried to table-top me. He crouched down behind me and threw me back onto the curb. Then another kid kicked me, kicked my head into the curb. I started bleeding everywhere. It was crazy. But luckily, an undercover cop was there and saw the whole thing. He helped me out. He called the police but the police were of no help. The police told me I should go to the hospital and I was like, “Well, I don’t have health care here, it’s going to be too expensive. I’ll just go back to my hotel room.” So I went back to my hotel room and woke up covered in blood the next day. I was like, “Well, guess that means I really did Razzmatazz.”

I’m not trying to talk down Razzmatazz. It was definitely my fault, not having the handler. It was so late. There was just no one to walk us back. It was—well, it was sort of a freak accident. Maybe I’m naive in thinking people are gonna be nice and not do shady shit, but it happens—it definitely happens, unfortunately, and now I have a scar over my right eyebrow to remember that.