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Make sure I know all of the notes on the fretboard, but, particularly, that I know all of the notes on the 6, 5, and 4 strings, as that's where the root notes of the various shapes are going to appear.
Learn the CAGED shapes, which basically correspond to 2 shapes with the root on the 6th string (the E, and the G shape), 2 shapes with the root on the 5th string (the C and the A shapes) and one with the root on the 4th (the D shape).
Practice playing the chord progressions of the tunes you do, but instead of just using E position barre chords (and the odd A position barre chord) mess around with using some of the other shapes.
Mess around with just using fragments of the chords, and in particular not bothering to play anything on the 6 and 5 strings. e.g. for a chord progression that went C, G, Am F, you could play:
(C) x x 5 5 5 x (G) x x 5 4 3 x (Aminor) x x 7 5 5 x (F) x x 3 5 x x
Or something like that. Maybe slide into one of those chords, or replace with a couple of single note.
Then I'd start getting into playing inversions. i.e. chords where the lowest note isn't the root note, and where the order of the notes isn't just R 3 5 (or R 3 5 7).
e.g.
(C) x 7 5 5 x x (G) 7 5 5 x x x (A minor) x 12 11 9 x x (F) x 8 10 10 10 x
Variations on all of the above. Add in some chromatic movement (just simple slides into a chord). Maybe some bass lines, e.g.
(C) x 7 5 5 x x ... single note on 6th string 8 \ (G) 7 5 5 x x x (A minor) x 12 11 9 x x (F) x 8 10 10 10 x
Well if that's genuinely how you feel about the music you're playing, just quit and find/start a better band!
beleive it or not, most pairs of notes go together quite well, whether you know what they are or what chord or scale they go with,
many groups of 3 notes go together.
just explore playing groups of 2 and 3 notes together in various places and see which ones you like the sound of. Then play some strumming rhythms that you like the feel / groove of.
after 10 to 15 mins of doing that you’ve got some new chops, with no massive investment
But if the problem is, 'how do I play interesting things within a structure -- harmony, chord progression, song, etc. -- that is fixed' then it really really helps knowing some very basic theory, and the CAGED shapes. You'll come up with things you like that go with that specific chord progression a lot quicker if you know some rudimentary things about how music works and how it relates to the neck of the guitar.
Lots of people have great ears, and just come up with this stuff spontaneously without ever having to learn it. For the rest of us, having a little bit of structure to hook into, is very helpful.
I say this as someone who has been playing guitar for 40 years, and who only really learned a lot of this stuff embarrassingly recently. And it's completely transformed what I can do on the guitar. Echoing what @Grunfeld has already said above.
i mean it, I came to CAGED and knowing the fretboard etc after 30 to 35 years too. Just wished I’d moved away from 6 strings chords years/ decades ago. It wasn’t until I got in a band as the only guitarist a couple of years back that I had to work it out and “find a sound”.
The question you didn't ask: If you feel you can, have a conversation with the band about the way you feel about the split of guitar duties. It doesn't matter if he's a much better lead player than you - most covers bands (you're in a covers band, yes?) play songs with solos that anyone can learn to play well. Those songs don't need a great player, just a decent one.
The question you did ask: I'm going with the minority answer here. Rhythm playing is about playing rhythmically, not note choice, chords and harmonies. Depending on the material you're playing, there should be lots of opportunities for rhythmic variation and use of interesting techniques. Listen to what the drummer and bass player are doing and complement them. For rhythm guitar, less is often more. Muting, chordal stabs, harmonising with the bass part, loud/soft passages for dynamics. Even if you're not playing funk, copying funk rhythm player techniques can really expand your rhythmic palette. Free your inner Nile Rogers!
Of course, if you're only playing Oasis numbers then you're stuffed.... sorry!
TBH, I think you should have the discussion and be prepared to leave if they don't want to help you be happier. I live in Dorset, and so many of the covers bands I watch view their semi-professional hobby as a job and seem to have no fun or musical adventure in their playing (although they certainly have fun in other aspects of the job). Their idea of success is being booked 2-3 nights per week and filling the venue. No discussions about what they play other than how an audience reacts to a number. If you're the entertainment and being paid for it, that's a fine, appropriate attitude to take - but it means it's a job.
Maybe in your band, the job of the rhythm guitarist is to play simple stuff and look happy whilst you're doing it. If so, it doesn't sound like you want to do that any more.
Personally, I would leave. I wouldn't want to play with another guitarist who can't leave space for other musicians.
If there's 2 guitarists (and I must admit there are bands that do all right with 2, even if I largely sympathise with Ritchie Blackmore "1 guitarist is enough for any band"), then @tralfamadan has got it right "The best rock/blues sound to me is always when both guitarists are playing together, either playing counterpoint melodies or creating interesting harmonies & rhythm variations." Think Wishbone Ash
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
An important thing is to make sure you're not playing the same chord shape as the other player (when they're playing chords) - something I've found is on songs where there are two of us strumming, to play a shape quite high up, which gives more of a 12-string shimmer. Also (and I don't know if this is scientifically true), it often feels like if more than one guitarist is playing the same inversion at the same time you get phase cancellation, and the sound gets smaller and mushier rather than bigger and more rocking.
Another odd thing is doing boring work (that pays off) on being steady on the down stroke and the upstroke - if you know the hand's going down on the on-beats and up on the off-beats, you can make really groovy strumming patterns - accentuating the up-strokes puts the accent onto the off-beats, the -ands ("one-and, two-and etc). Like a ska guitarist, but mixed up with down-strokes. Early Gang of Four is good for that.
Secretly form a really cool trio with the bass player and the drummer - not actually, but think in those terms.
Also, thinking in terms of instruments that aren't guitars is another way to go about it - thinking about what an organ player or horn or string part might do. Or the old Nelson Riddle trick of playing the same notes as the bass, but an octave up - which you can only use quite rarely, maybe once or twice in a set, because it's a definite gimmick, but it sounds awesome when you do.
I remember reading an interview with Andy Partridge a long time ago (around Drums and Wires/Black Sea sort of time), where he described what made them different from most bands - he took a piece of paper and tour it down the middle twice so he had four pieces of paper, and he said "Now, this is what most bands are like", and lined up the bits of paper square, one on top of another. "But this is what XTC are like..." and he turned the different pieces so the corners stuck out at odd angles. Looking for those odd corners can be a lot of fun, and it's often that that makes a band interesting.
Sorry if I've rambled on a bit, and I hope some of it's useful - it's a place I've been a couple of times, and mostly I made it a game to find small things to do that make a difference without provoking anyone into asking what the hell I think I'm doing. I don't always get away with it, but it's a more enjoyable way of fucking up than just being a bit shit, and to be honest as long as you're in the groove with the rest of the rhythm section, in tune and in time it's not even really fucking up.
* Funk-up your chords and yes those shortened bottom half of the Barre chord shapes work well as does plenty of Thwacker Thawacking
* If you adopt the above then you can also Slide-into your chords and why not slide back out of them?? This can be done outside of the funky chops style to to add that country feel
* Arpeggiate within the chord strum
* AC/DC are the Kings of the shortened chords - why play 4 or 5 notes when 2 with some gain will do?
* Articulate just the bass contingent of your chord
* Vibrato - in whichever way but non-excessive use of any whammy arm is best - so shake that body (guitar's not yours!) for an nice organic result.
* Be clever with your ambience. Reverb with short sharp dynamic attack and then a move into longer tails really adds something
*Doublestops between shapes where possible - everyone acknowledges doublestops as clever bastard moves!
* Move your feet with the music - any movement - even wacky face-pulling - has a direct result on the sound!
And think yourself luck that you not gonner have that click on pedal to solo only to get hiss or the wrong sound moment!
There's a Paul Gilbert video where he says something like the first thing he has to teach students is to move when playing - if you aren't feeling the beat you aren't playing the beat.