American Werewolves is a horror punk band from Cleveland, Ohio. The band was originally known as The Plan and it was formed in 1998 by then-art student Trevor Moment. Moment, a fan of doo-wop, horror movies, Elvis and punk, decided that he wanted to make music. His idea was to create a cross between Sam Cooke and Samhain while not disregarding his love for doo-wop, and he began writing tunes before The Plan was formed.

Though The Plan had dug its own grave, Trevor Moment still wanted to perform and write music. American Werewolves were born. Moment formed the American Werewolves with new drummer Nate 68, guitarist Ray Terry (Allergic to Whores/Nightbreed/Kill The Fall) and Tony Scamboney. The band played its first official show with Integrity at Peabody's in Cleveland, Ohio. The band did play a one-off show at the Grog Shop in (Cleveland Heights) a few weeks earlier but was never really considered to be the official show since some of the members had never met prior to taking the stage and the set was kind of thrown together. It was more like a practice show.

The band had made its mark in a big way with the Integrity show. The band still had the faithful from The Plan days and made plenty of new fans at that show. The band played a couple more shows until the amicable departure of Ray Terry. Ray had his own band to focus on and felt that AW was cutting into that. This left Moment with the familiar task of having to find a new guitarist.

In early June of 2003 Trevor contacted an old friend who was quite familiar with the American Werewolves/The Plan catalog to see if he'd be interested in filling the newly vacant guitar spot. This would mark the third time that Brendan Less would be a part of the organization. The band had made plans to record the first release under the name American Werewolves. After just four practices with the new lineup, the 'Wolves entered Russian Recording Studio in Nashville, Indiana to begin work on what would become "We Won't Stay Dead" with Mike Bridavsky at the helm. Thirteen tracks and five days later the album was done. The album contained some unreleased songs as well as re-recorded versions of older songs performed by The Plan.