I don’t think there’s gonna be guitar solos on my upcoming internet album for now ’cause I feel that I’m not that good enough of a lead guitarist yet. I feel that I’m a pretty good rhythm guitarist, though but I still need a lot of learning to do and practicing in lead guitar.
I have been focusing on trying to learn lead guitar, though. Like I always say, I’ve been studying music theory ’cause in order to be a great lead guitarist, you have to know music theory. Lead guitar and music theory both go together, in my opinion. I’m working on my ear training and listening skills. Working on techniques, learning scales, etc. Sometime down the road, I’ll make face melting guitar music with cool solos.
That’s why I’m starting to get into jazz music a little bit. Listen to jazz guitar for inspiration and I’m also gonna look into listening to classical guitar too. Of course, I’ll start listening to the classical greats like Bach and Beethoven. All that stuff.
I just wanna improve my guitar chops a little bit. I’ll never become a technical god like Yngwie Malmsteen, Al Di Meola, Joe Satriani or Steve Vai… I just wanna improve my songwriting skills. I just wanna get better. I just wanna become a real musician and that’s what I’m aiming for. Prove the doubters wrong that I know what I’m doing musically and know my shit!
Kev
K'Brocking 
I don’t think all great lead guitarists started out knowing a great deal about music theory. They picked it up along the way even if they didn’t realize it. I do think as they went along their career they became more and more proficient at it.
I think taking songs you like and then backwards-engineering them would be very useful. Find out what scale a particular solo is in and work it out and practice those runs. In time you will have a mental library and if you have them down cold you can assemble them by what you are feeling at the moment or what would suit the song.
So…. don’t wait to get good at the theory to throw some lead in there. Maybe just a 3 or 5 note run to add a bit of taste or flavor. Use walk-up and walk-down’s if you are on the country side.