DETROIT — Lead singer James Scott of punk band Dante’s Inferno takes time out of his busy schedule to shout “guitar” before each guitar solo out of courteousness, multiple informed sources reported.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” said Scott. “I’ve listened to dozens of songs where a guitar solo will come out of nowhere, and every single time it surprises and scares the shit out of me. Our listeners may not be ready for a guitar solo with no preparation. We need to ease them into the tasty licks and face-shredding riffs, otherwise they might go into shock. My uncle died of a heart attack when he didn’t expect the solo from ‘Hot for Teacher’ so I made it my life’s work to never let that happen again. Really it’s just manners though.”
Some members of the band did not share Scott’s enthusiasm for announcing guitar solos.
“He’s even started yelling ‘outro!’ towards the end of songs,” said beleaguered Dante’s Inferno guitarist DaVarius Wynne. “I think he is trying to Pavlovian condition me. Every rehearsal we have he will say ‘guitar’ before I solo, and then tries to give me a treat like a chocolate bar or Olde English afterward. I’m getting pretty fucking sick of it. I know when to play guitar, it’s like my entire job. I don’t stand there and constantly scream ‘singing!’ while he is hitting high notes. At a show last week, I was shredding a solo, and he leans into the mic and says ‘guitar continues’ like 10 seconds into my part. It threw me off my game so hard.”
The gentlemanly introduction to guitar solos seems to be the start of a trend in the music industry.
“We are going to start introducing every sound in a song. Like subtitles that you can hear,” said super producer Rick Rock. “It’s time we make music for the hearing impaired explaining exactly what they’re listening to at any given moment. Dante’s Inferno made a good start by not letting a guitar solo go unannounced. We will follow their example by supporting audio descriptions for all of our music going forward, and even working on it for our back catalog. We think Beethoven’s music will be much more enjoyable when people know exactly what instrument is playing at all times. Harpsichord!”
At press time, Scott was announcing each chord that Wynne was playing before giving play-by-play of him smashing his guitar in frustration.