James Dennis Carroll was born on August 1, 1949[1] to a working-class family of Irish descent, and grew up in New York City's Lower East Side.

[3] Carroll identified Rainer Maria Rilke, Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, James Schuyler,[6] Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs as influences on his artistic career.

At first, he was writing film dialogue and inventing character names; later on, Carroll worked as the co-manager of Warhol's Theater.

[8] In 1978, Carroll published The Basketball Diaries, an autobiographical book concerning his life as a teenager in New York City's hard drug culture.

[4][9][10] In 1987, Carroll wrote a second memoir, Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries 1971–1973, continuing his autobiography into his early adulthood in the New York City music and art scene as well as his struggle to kick his drug habit.

[11] After working as a musician, Carroll returned to writing full-time in the mid-1980s and began to appear regularly on the spoken-word circuit.

[13] In 1978, after he moved to California to get a fresh start since overcoming his heroin addiction, Carroll formed Amsterdam, a new wave/punk rock group, with encouragement from Patti Smith, with whom he once shared an apartment in New York City, along with Robert Mapplethorpe.

He performed a spoken word piece with the Patti Smith Group in San Diego when the support band dropped out at the last moment.

[citation needed] Later albums were Dry Dreams (1982) and I Write Your Name (1983), both with contributions from Lenny Kaye and Paul Sanchez (guitar).

[citation needed] Carroll also collaborated with musicians Lou Reed, Blue Öyster Cult, Boz Scaggs, Ray Manzarek of The Doors, Pearl Jam, Electric Light Orchestra and Rancid.

[citation needed] The song also was covered by the super group Hollywood Vampires on their album Rise with vocals by Johnny Depp.